Toyota's Rovanpera sets pace on WRC Rally Sweden shakedown

In picture postcard conditions, they completed round two's precursor three tenths of a second quicker than their nearest Rally1 rivals.

The best effort from the Toyota Gazoo Racing team-mates through the 4.74-miles of ‘Klabbole’ came on their third and final run, breaking the timing beam in three minutes 22.4 seconds.

Hot on the heels of the young Finns was Ott Tanak. The 2019 champion’s decision to return to service with Martin Jarveoja to make set-up changes before run number three paid off handsomely.

Tanak – the winner of last year’s Arctic Rally Finland – is considered one of the favourites to win the only snow rally on the WRC calendar given his favourable road position for tomorrow's opening leg.

Thierry Neuville rounded out the top three shakedown places despite the Hyundai star getting wedged in a snowbank just 2.56-miles into his opening 'Klabbole' run.

He dropped four minutes but was able to continue once freed and, like Rovanpera and Tanak, saved his best for last. “I just got caught under braking,” said the Belgian, who was eight tenths down on Rovanpera's time.

“There was much more snow than on the recce and I lost some grip and went wide and got stuck on a snow bank. It took some time to get out.”

Takamoto Katsuta - a dark horse this weekend - went fourth fastest alongside Aaron Johnston, the Japanese driver applying all of his snow and ice experience from living across the border in Finland to good effect.

M-Sport Ford's Craig Breen had a similar off-road experience as Neuville, albeit a little further into the test. He ended up 2.3 seconds shy of the leading time, with his running mate Gus Greensmith a further four tenths of a second off the early pace.

Elfyn Evans - the WRC runner up for the past two seasons - set an identical time to Hyundai protege Oliver Solberg, one tenth up on Esapekka Lappi who is making his Rally1 debut this weekend with Toyota.

M-Sport Ford's Adrien Fourmaux bookended the top 10 positions at the wheel of the Puma he helped engineers back at Cockermouth build following his scary crash on last month's Rallye Monte Carlo. The talented Frenchman worked on repairing the hybrid unit, the cross members and suspension arms.

Rally Sweden starts tomorrow morning with the 'Krokosjo' stage at 7.42am. In all, crews will tackle seven special stages covering a competitive distance totalling 78.5 miles.