Manuel Matos, soloist of the local folk ensemble Los Gofiones, entertained the minutes prior to the beginning of this ceremony that led to each and every one of the teams that will participate in the Rally Islas Canarias through the emblematic starting and finishing arc of Parque Santa Catalina.

Previously, at five o'clock in the afternoon, the fifteen fastest riders of the Qualifying Stage celebrated in the Ingenio-Telde section chose their starting position for the first of the two legs from the podium. Nikolay Gryazin-Yaroslav Fedorov (Skoda Fabia R5), the fastest, decided to start at the most behindnand point, that is to say, in fifteenth place. At the other extreme, the canaries Luis Monzón-José Carlos Déniz (Ford Fiesta R5), who were twelfth in the morning, risked -as last year- to open each of the sections on Friday.

David Bótka-Mark Mesterhazi (Skoda Fabia R5), Orhan Avciouglu-Burcin Korkmaz (Skoda Fabia R5), Lukasz Habaj-Daniel Dymurski (Ford Fiesta R5) and Grzegorz Grzyb-Jakub Wróbel (Skoda Fabia R5) will commence after the Grancanary. The current champions of Spain Iván Ares-José Pintor (Hyundai i20 R5), chose to leave tenth, while José Antonio Suárez-Cándido Carrera (Hyundai i20 R5) will do it in twelfth place, ahead of the three big favorites: Bruno Magalhaes-Hugo Magalhaes (Skoda Fabia R5), Alexey Lukyanuk-Alexey Arnautov (Ford Fiesta R5) and Nikolay Gryazin-Yaroslav Fedorov (Skoda Fabia R5).

The first stage will consist of two passes to the stages of 'Valsequillo-Festina' (10.96 km), 'San Mateo-DISA' (15.04 km), 'Artenara' (23.05 km) in the two first sections and two passes of the urban stage of 'Las Palmas de Gran Canaria-DISA' (1,44 km) on the third and last of Friday, May 4. The fans are reminded that all the stages will be closed an hour and a half before its celebration.