Jos leads after first day of Hellendoorn Rally: 'Car feels great'
Published on 20 September 2024 by Misha van der Kroon
Jos Verstappen had a strong start in the Hellendoorn Rally, which started on Friday evening with six stages. The 52-year-old driver, along with his co-driver Renaud Jamoul, participate in their Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 car, and have taken the lead in the overall standings after the first day.
“The car feels great, but everything has to be right. It will be an exciting battle, but we’ll see. The fastest will win tomorrow,” Jos says, already looking forward to the Saturday. “Hellendoorn is a fun rally to drive. It's a beautiful area with great stages, it’s nice to be back here.”
On Friday evening, around 7:00 pm local time, the duo with start number 2 was ready for the first stage, Klein Kromhof, which they won. They were 1.3 seconds ahead of experienced driver Bernhard ten Brinke, who finished second. On the next stage, Schuttingdeal, Ten Brinke was 4.3 seconds faster. On Teunis, the third stage of the first round, Ten Brinke made a mistake and lost 18 seconds to Verstappen, who by then had a 15-second lead over his main rival. At that moment, Roger Hodenius was impressively second in the overall standings.
“I want to get through the Friday evening without any issues, because I find it a bit more difficult to drive in the dark. There’s a lot of backlight and glare, and it’s just harder to see everything,” Jos explains, while leading the standings. “I can afford to lose some time tonight, I don’t mind. Saturday is a new day, and then we’ll drive in daylight.”
The second round of stages started well for Verstappen and Jamoul with another P1 on Klein Kromhof. Ten Brinke, the winner of the previous edition of the Hellendoorn Rally, followed 2.6 seconds behind. On Schuttingdeal, the second stage, Jos finished second. Ten Brinke regained time on this stage, 6.3 seconds to be exact. This moved him up to P2 in the overall standings, at the expense of Hodenius. The sixth and final stage of the evening, Teunis, started after 11:00 pm local time, and was also won by Ten Brinke. Jos followed 7.3 seconds behind, and therefore leads the Hellendoorn Rally after the first day with a 4.1-second advantage over Ten Brinke.
