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.