WRC Rally Catalunya

Just one more point before I get on with the hardcore, finger-smoking typing: anybody who makes a big gap on their rivals this afternoon has a better-than-usual chance of keeping in through the weekend.

The asphalt stages in Catalunya are full of fast and medium speed corners. There aren’t too many junctions, tight or technical places (it’s certainly nothing like Corsica), so making up time can be quite tricky when all the cars are carrying the same sort of speed.

For those of you wondering where Spain’s WRC round runs, Salou is 60 miles south down the coast from Barcelona. Salou itself is a typical Spanish seaside town on the Costa Daurada, complete with a million and one shops where you can buy an alligator to float on or a fake Barca shirt with Messi’s name spelt incorrectly on the back (I kid you not, I’ve seen that).

Inland is where the action is (naturally, this not being a sea-based sport…) and into the hills of Tarragona for the stages. It’s here where the place really comes alive for the rally. You drive up though beautifully sleepy villages with houses nestling in among the olive groves and, certainly in the morning, smell nothing but the log fires which have kept the locals warm through the chillier-than-expected autumn evenings.

Spain’s round of the world championship cuts to the heart of the current political debate rampaging in this part of the world. The event is very much the property of the RACC – the Royal Automobile Club Catalunya – and runs wholly in that region, but it counts as the Spanish round of the championship. And reached WRC standing off the back of Spaniard Carlos Sainz, who was reigning world champion when the event first ran on the Costa Brava (Lloret de Mar) in 1991.

And there’s nothing new about rallying in Catalunya – far from it. This very event had long been a round of the European Rally Championship prior to 1991 and the town of Vic, inland from Lloret, is a very longstanding testing hub for WRC teams. Toyota Gazoo Racing spent months and months in this part of the world crafting the Yaris WRC for gravel and asphalt. Surprising then, that the Finns weren’t such a force this morning. Maybe they’ve saved their best for the afternoon.

Dawned on me while I was tucking into my sandwich (blue cheese and chicken, for the record) that I’d talked about Ogier having four hard tyres on for Terra Alta. Completely wrong, massive apologies. He and Tanak were, of course, running a mixed set-up, having both taken three softs and two hards for the morning.

Where on earth did those last couple of hours go? What a morning! And what a great way back into the World Rally Championship after a six-week break.

Who'd have thought Hyundai new boy Andreas Mikkelsen would be heading back to Salou out front? Can't wait for the afternoon. But now... lunch.