Toyota’s Kalle Rovanpera wrapped up a dominant start-to-finish victory at Rally Latvia on Sunday afternoon (above), the reigning WRC champ securing back-to-back wins on high-speed gravel events.
Having started his first-ever rally on Latvia’s roads more than a decade ago aged just 12, the 24-year-old Finn was back on familiar ground as he put on a masterclass at the Baltic nation’s first FIA World Rally Championship round.
Rovanpera, who’s elected to run only a part-time campaign for Toyota Gazoo Racing in 2024, was never seriously challenged during the four-day event, which started in the capital city, Riga, on Thursday evening before journeying south toward the coastal resort of Liepaja. He built a commanding lead during the first two legs in his Toyota GR Yaris Rally1, then eased through Sunday’s final leg to win the season’s eighth round by 39.2s.
Eight-time WRC champ and fellow part-timer Sebastien Ogier completed a Toyota 1-2, while Hyundai i20 N Rally1 driver Ott Tanak grabbed the final podium spot from a hugely impressive Martins Sesks after the local hero’s M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1 was hampered by a transmission fault in the rally-ending Wolf Power Stage.
“It has been a great weekend,” said Rovanpera, whose victory followed a similarly dominant performance at the previous round on Poland’s super-quick gravel. “It’s cool to have the first [WRC] win here, because Latvia is an important place for me.
“Big thanks to Jonne [Halttunen, co-driver] and the whole team — we have been stronger than we expected. We are going to enjoy this one and then work hard [for the next round] in Finland.”
Sesks was cruelly deprived of what could have been a first WRC podium on only his second start at rallying’s top level, and his first with a full-spec Rally1 hybrid machine. The 24-year-old Latvian won two stages on Friday and started Sunday’s final test with a seemingly comfortable 4.6s margin over Tanak, despite two overshoots earlier in the morning, but Sesks’ Puma Rally1 developed a transmission problem at the start of the stage.
“It was in the first corner,” explained Sesks, who lost almost two minutes and plummeted to seventh. “We don’t know if it’s a diff problem or something like that, but after that we understood our podium chance was over. Still, I think we showed our pace and made everyone happy.”
The WRC drivers’ dhampionship battle closed up as a tenacious Tanak extracted maximum available points from Super Sunday and climbed to second in the standings.
He now trails Hyundai teammate Thierry Neuville by just eight points with five rounds remaining, with Toyota’s Elfyn Evans, who slipped to third in the standings, just five points further back. Neuville and Evans finished eighth and fifth, respectively, both struggling to recover from the time loss they faced by running first and second on the road on Friday and getting the worst of the loose surface gravel.
M-Sport Ford’s Adrien Fourmaux ended 27.0s behind Tanak in fourth, despite encountering a small engine problem on the last two stages, with Evans finishing a further 11.2s in arrears in fifth.
Takamoto Katsuta brought his GR Yaris home sixth overall, ahead of the ailing Sesks and Neuville, while Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi and M-Sport Ford driver Gregoire Munster both nursed technical issues through the closing stages to complete the top-10 leaderboard.
In WRC2, the second tier of international rallying, Oliver Solberg stormed into the championship lead after completing an impressive and well-judged Latvian victory.
The 22-year-old Swede led from start to finish on a surface he revels in, taking maximum points in his Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 to overtake Sami Pajari and Yohan Rossel, who was not competing in Latvia as one of his seven counting events, in the race for the WRC2 title.
After winning seven out of eight stages to open a commanding lead of more than half a minute on Friday’s opening leg, Solberg managed his speed accordingly over the closing two legs to ensure he kept Finn Mikko Heikkila’s Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 at bay.
Solberg now leads the WRC2 standings by three points from Pajari after ending Rally Latvia with a 37.4s winning margin.
“It’s a fantastic feeling to finally win again,” said Solberg, whose last WRC2 win came on the snows of Sweden in February. “There’s been a few tough rallies, but it is amazing to be back up to speed. The car has been working well over the weekend, so thanks to the team for keeping it up to speed.”
Next up, the WRC remains in northern Europe for Rally Finland, the third and final instalment of its fast-gravel trilogy on Aug. 1-4. Kalle Rovanpera is yet to win his home event, but with the part-timer in red-hot form and continuing his 2024 tour on the roads around Jyvaskyla, can he make it three victories on the bounce?
WRC Rally Latvia, final positions after Leg Three, SS20
1 Kalle Rovanpera/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) 2h31m47.6s
2 Sebastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +39.2s
3 Ott Tanak/Martin Jarveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1m04.5s
4 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Ford Puma Rally1) +1m31.5s
5 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +1m42.7s
6 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +2m07.0s
7 Martins Sesks/Renars Francis (Ford Puma Rally1) +2m45.4s
8 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +2m46.4s
9 Esapekka Lappi/Janne Ferm (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +5m12.4s
10 Gregoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1) +5m23.1s
WRC Drivers’ Championship after 8 rounds
1 Neuville 145 points
2 Tanak 137
3 Evans 132
4 Ogier 117
5 Fourmaux 101
WRC Manufacturers’ Championship after 8 rounds
1 Hyundai Motorsport 351 points
2 Toyota Gazoo Racing 350
3 M-Sport Ford 177
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