ELFYN Evans has claimed the early lead at Rally Sweden for Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team in the only pure winter round of the FIA World Rally Championship, ahead of team-mate Kalle Rovanperä.

Always one of the fastest rounds of the season, this year’s Rally Sweden looks set to be spectacular with temperatures well below freezing forming a solid ice base for the special studded tyres to bite into, and high snowbanks lining the road that can help the drivers to carry even more speed through corners.

The usual pre-event shakedown took place on Thursday morning in the host city of Umeå, following a new course along the bank of the Ume River.

Evans, running first on the road as the leading championship contender, set the fastest time after the first runs and finished up third quickest after three passes, just ahead of Rovanperä.

This was followed in the evening by the opening competitive stage, the Umeå Sprint on the edge of the city: a 5.16-kilometre stage starting on fast forest roads and finishing in a more technical spectator arena.

Evans led the way to record the best time, 0.5 seconds quicker than both Rovanperä and Ott Tänak (Hyundai). Takamoto Katsuta and Sami Pajari were just over five seconds back in sixth and seventh places respectively.

Dolgellau’s Evans said: “The conditions look brilliant out on the stages, with a good ice base and big snowbanks – you couldn’t really hope for much better.

“This first stage was a pretty solid start: the braking points can be difficult to find in the dark and the grip was difficult to judge, but it was all OK.

“It might be that some stages work in our favour opening the road tomorrow, and others like the first stage where there’s a bit more loose snow on the ground could cost us a bit more, but let’s see how it goes.”

1 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) 3m21.6s; 2 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +0.5s; 3 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +0.5s; 4 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1.2s; 5 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +3.7s; 6 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +5.4s; 7 Sami Pajari/Marko Salminen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1) +5.6s; 8 Josh McErlean/Eoin Treacy (Ford Puma Rally1) +7.5s; 9 Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1) +10.5s; 10 Mārtiņš Sesks/Renārs Francis (Ford Puma Rally1) +11.0s (Results as of 18:45 on Thursday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)

Friday is the longest day of the rally featuring 124.32 competitive kilometres driven mostly to the north of Umeå. A loop of three stages is run twice either side of mid-day service, consisting of the familiar Bygdsiljum test and the all-new Andersvattnet and Bäck stages. Another pass of the Umeå Sprint rounds out the day.