Tag: Rally Poland

After a whirlwind few days, Kalle Rovanpera claimed one of the most remarkable victories in FIA World Rally Championship history at Rally Poland.

The reigning WRC champ, who’s elected to recharge his rallying batteries and take on a part-time campaign in 2024, never even planned to start this rally but was called in at the last minute by his Toyota Gazoo Racing team to replace Sebastien Ogier. Eight-time champ Ogier was sidelined after a road car accident during the event recce on Tuesday, leaving the 23-year-old Finn and co-driver Jonne Halttunen with less than 48 hours to ready themselves for the high-speed gravel of an event that hadn’t featured in the WRC since 2017.

Far from affecting Rovanpera, the frantic preparations and lack of real expectations seemed to spur him on as he charged to his 13th WRC career victory in a Toyota GR Yaris Rally1. He headed home teammate Elfyn Evans by 28.3s in a Toyota 1-2 after early rally leader Andreas Mikkelsen plummeted down the order on Sunday in his Hyundai i20 N Rally1.

Rovanpera began Sunday’s short final leg 9.4s in front of Mikkelsen, but the Norwegian’s bid for a second Rally Poland victory to go with his 2016 win for VW was dashed when he crawled to the end of the opening stage with a tire off the rim. He tumbled to sixth overall by the finish as M-Sport Ford man Adrien Fourmaux completed the podium 14.4s behind Evans.

“It’s been quite an amazing week,” said Rovanpera, whose original plans for the weekend consisted of jet-skiing with friends on his local lake.

“Definitely I have to say we have been working quite hard and we are really tired now. I think the best thing is we came here and it was not a bad idea to come. We helped the team a lot and took a lot of points for the manufacturers’ championship, so we didn’t waste our time.”

Mikkelsen, who’s also running only a limited WRC program in 2024, led through Friday’s opening leg before slipping behind Rovanpera during Saturday’s stages. After the flailing rubber from Sunday’s tire issue ripped his car’s rear wheel arch apart, he chose to cruise through the closing stages.

“It was sad what happened today,” he said. “We were really unlucky, but the right thing to do [after that] was to bring the car back for the team.”

Running in temperatures that rarely dipped below 80 F, the returning Rally Poland suffered from some spectator-control issues, but still provided edge-of-the-seat drama as the WRC contenders traded tenths of a second on the blisteringly fast roads around Mikolajki.

Barring a tire delamination on Saturday and a slow puncture in the rally-closing Wolf Power Stage, Evans fared well compared to his main WRC title rivals. The Welshman’s Polish points haul meant he overtook Hyundai’s Ott Tanak to reclaim second in the drivers’ championship and cut Thierry Neuville’s lead to 15 points with six rounds remaining.

An unfortunate impact with a deer forced Tanak’s retirement on Friday morning, but he restarted on both the following days and was able to salvage 11 points from a strong run on Super Sunday. His Hyundai teammate Neuville, meanwhile, won the bonus points-paying Wolf Power Stage, but finished only fourth overall after starting first on the road on Friday (the unfortunate “honor” of being the points leader) and sweeping the road clear of loose stones for the cars behind…

Puma Rally1 star Fourmaux, who scored his third podium of the season, ended the rally 28.1s clear of Neuville, while Latvia’s Martins Sesks earned an impressive fifth-place finish on his debut in top-tier Rally1 machinery. Sesks, who ran as high as second early in the event, was driving a non-hybrid and less powerful version of the Puma, but will upgrade to a full-spec car for his home WRC round next month.

Mikkelsen limped home over two minutes in arrears of Rovanpera’s winning time in sixth, ahead of Gregoire Munster in the second of the full-spec Pumas, with Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta a disappointing eighth after an event he never came close to feeling comfortable on.

In WRC2, the second tier of international rallying, Sami Pajari surged from fourth to second in the overall championship standings after securing his second consecutive class win.

The 22-year-old Finn, fresh off a WRC2 win on Rally Italy last time out, stormed into the class lead on Friday morning and maintained a fast and error-free pace on the rapid Polish gravel to ensure his position at the top was never threatened.

He battled with local hero Kajetan Kajetanowicz in the early stages, but was left with a comfortable buffer when the Pole retired his Skoda Fabia RS with suspension damage on Saturday. Pajari took no risks through Sunday’s four-stage final leg, cruising to the finish 22.0s clear of Oliver Solberg’s Skoda to seal his back-to-back victory run.

The result sees Pajari moving to within three points of Citroen’s WRC2 championship leader Yohan Rossel. A WRC2 driver can nominate only seven rounds to score points on, and the Frenchman elected to skip Poland.

The WRC’s run of super-fast, northern European gravel events continues next month at Rally Latvia. A first-time addition to the championship, the Liepaja-based rally takes place July 18-21.

WRC Rally Poland, final positions after Leg Three, SS19


1 Kalle Rovanpera/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +2h33m07.6s

2 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +28.3s

3 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Ford Puma Rally1) +42.7s

4 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1m10.8s

5 Martins Sesks/Renars Francis (Ford Puma Rally1, non-hybrid) +1m47.0s

6 Andreas Mikkelsen/Torstein Eriksen (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +2m16.6s

7 Gregoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1) +2m18.0s

8 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +2m26.7s

9 Sami Pajari/Enni Malkonen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 – WRC2 leader) +7m50.7s

10 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Skoda Fabia RS – WRC2) +8m12.7s

WRC Drivers’ Championship after 7 rounds 


1 Neuville 136 points

2 Evans 121

3 Tanak 115

4 Sebastien Ogier 92

5 Fourmaux 91

WRC Manufacturers’ Championship after 7 rounds


1 Hyundai Motorsport 311 points

2 Toyota Gazoo Racing 301

3 M-Sport Ford 156

Check out WRC.com, the official home of the FIA World Rally Championship. And for the ultimate WRC experience, sign up for a Rally.TV subscription to watch all stages of every rally live and on demand, whenever and wherever.

Kalle Rovanpera is closing in on a potentially extraordinary WRC Rally Poland victory after a dominant second leg on Saturday saw Toyota’s reigning WRC champ seize the lead from Hyundai’s Andreas Mikkelsen.

The 23-year-old Finn (above) ended Saturday with his GR Yaris Rally1 holding a 9.4s lead over Mikkelsen’s i20 N Rally1 with just four special stages and 40 competitive miles remaining in which to determine the winner of the seventh round of the FIA World Rally Championship on Sunday.

Rovanpera has elected to run a limited WRC schedule in 2024, with Poland’s super-fast gravel not originally on his calendar. But with Toyota Gazoo Racing teammate Sebastien Ogier sidelined by a traffic accident during Tuesday’s recce, Rovanpera was pressed into service, carrying out a rushed recce with co-driver Jonne Halttunen and admitting to some trepidation on taking on the event’s high-speed stages. 

Nevertheless, on a day that saw multiple stages interrupted and delayed  by spectators getting too close to the action, Rovanpera racked up six fastest times and overturned the 1.8s advantage Mikkelsen had held over him on Friday night.

Tire wear threatened to undermine Rovanpera’s dominance in the hot temperatures of the afternoon’s repeated loop of stages. With the mercury nudging 85°F, the hard-compound Pirelli rubber that made up the bulk of Mikkelsen’s selection outlasted Rovanpera’s mix of four softs and one hard. But despite that, Rovanpera made the best of his remaining tires, even adding 4.2s to his lead in the leg-ending 13.92 Czarne 2 stage.

“I tried my best the whole day, and the afternoon was definitely more enjoyable when I knew what was coming,” Rovanpera said. “It will not be easy tomorrow; I think it will be tougher than today. Let’s hope for the best.”  

Mikkelsen dropped to third behind GR Yaris driver Elfyn Evans after the morning’s first two stages, but Toyota’s 1-2 was short-lived as the Welshman suffered a rear tire delamination on the afternoon’s opening test. That cost Evans almost 10s and he was forced to settle for the final podium spot, trailing Mikkelsen by 6.7s overnight.

Evans could take some comfort from the fact that he outscored his main title rivals, the Hyundai duo of Thierry Neuville and Ott Tanak, in the Saturday points distribution. Evans collected 13 points, compared with Neuville’s six and Tanak’s zero. The latter, who’d already stopped on Friday after hitting a deer, retired his Hyundai again at Saturday’s lunchtime service halt in a bid to preserve the car for Super Sunday and the bonus points-paying, rally-closing Wolf Power Stage.

Adrien Fourmaux continued his strong run to fourth overall in the best of the M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1s, ending the leg 20.9s adrift of Evans, but 21.2s clear of fifth-placed Martiņs Sesks in a less powerful, non-hybrid Puma.

Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta completed the Rally1 runners in a lackluster eighth, having struggled to find any level of confidence in his GR Yaris.

In WRC2, the second tier of international rallying, Sami Pajari stretched his lead to almost half a minute as early rival Kajetan Kajetanowicz retired on Saturday.

Home hero Kajetanowicz had been pressuring Pajari for the lead on the opening leg and trailed the Finnish rising star by just 8.9s on Friday evening. However, the Pole’s victory hopes were dashed in Saturday’s third stage when he slid wide and damaged his Skoda Fabia RS’s rear suspension, dropping more than 20 minutes and later retiring.

“It’s life, it’s rallying,” said Kajetanowicz. “We went off, hit something and broke a [suspension] arm. These things happen when you are pushing.”

Kajetanowicz’s exit left Pajari more than 30s clear at the top of the class leaderboard by lunchtime, a buffer that the Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 driver would see reduced to 26.3s over Skoda driver Oliver Solberg at close of play on Saturday.

Solberg was hindered by his early starting position on Friday, which meant he encountered more loose gravel on the stages than his main WRC2 rivals. But on Saturday, with a more favorable slot in the start order, he climbed from seventh to second in class, pipping fellow Fabia driver Robert Virves by just 3.1s after the day’s final test.

Sunday’s final leg comprises double runs of Gmina Mragowo and Mikołajki, the second run through the latter comprising the 6.96-mile, rally-ending Wolf Power Stage. 

WRC Rally Poland, positions after Leg Two, SS15
1 Kalle Rovanpera/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +2h00m44.0s
2 Andreas Mikkelsen/Torstein Eriksen (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +9.4s
3 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +16.1s
4 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Ford Puma Rally1) +37.0s
5 Martins Sesks/Renars Francis (Ford Puma Rally1, non-hybrid) +58.2s
6 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +58.3s
7 Gregoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1) +1m24.5s
8 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +1m41.9s
9 Sami Pajari/Enni Malkonen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 – WRC2 leader) +5m46.5s
10 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Skoda Fabia RS – WRC2) +6m12.8s

Check out WRC.com, the official home of the FIA World Rally Championship. And for the ultimate WRC experience, sign up for a Rally.TV subscription to watch all stages of every rally live and on demand, whenever and wherever.

Hyundai WRC part-timer Andreas Mikkelsen (above) found himself leading an FIA World Rally Championship round for the first time since 2019, heading Toyota’s Kalle Rovanpera by just 1.8s after Friday’s opening leg of Rally Poland.

Just 7.7s covered the leading five drivers at the end of a frantic opening day on super-fast gravel roads. Temperatures touched a humid 85°F in northern Poland, although two stage cancellations meant that tire wear was not much of a concern, even for those running the soft-compound Pirelli rubber.

It’s only Mikkelsen’s third start of the 2024 WRC season, but he set the early pace on an event he’s excelled at in the past, including an overall win with VW in 2016. The Norwegian stormed into the lead on the morning’s opening stage, the 18.27-mile Stanczyki 1, as his title-chasing Hyundai teammate, Ott Tanak — who’d led following Thursday evening’s short super special — retired with front-end damage to his i20 N Rally1 caused by an unavoidable impact with a deer.

Mikkelsen built a buffer of 7.4s, but came under attack from Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 drivers Kalle Rovanpera and Elfyn Evans on the repeated afternoon loop when his later starting position offered less of an advantage on tracks already swept clear of loose gravel.

“I am happy with my day,” said Mikkelsen, who last led a WRC rally in Turkey in 2019. “I was too careful on the first stage after regroup, so we will try to adjust for tomorrow.”

Reigning WRC champ Rovanpera has elected to run a limited WRC program in 2024, and only found out he’d be taking on one of the WRC’s fastest events, rather than spending the weekend jet-skiing, when Toyota’s other potent part-timer, Sebastien Ogier, was involved in a minor collision during Tuesday’s recce day.  

Still the 23-year-old Finn produced one of the drives of the day, pipping Toyota Gazoo Racing teammate Evans in the final stage to head the Welshman by two-tenths of a second. Despite having less than ideal pre-event preparations, Rovanpera even collected two stage wins on an event making its first appearance on the WRC calendar since 2017.

“It’s quite funny; last night I was watching a [reconnaissance] video and I fell asleep at the laptop,” said Rovanpera. “I think we did a good job today [considering] the situation we are in.”

Evans posted top-three times for all but two stages and is currently poised to close thepoints  gap to title rivals Tanak and Thierry Neuville, whom he trailed coming into this seventh round of the season. Hyundai’s Neuville, who currently leads the championship, faced slippery conditions running first on the road and ended the leg down in seventh overall.

Martins Sesks made a stunning start to his Rally1 debut, stopping the clock just 0.3s adrift of Mikkelsen’s time on the morning’s opening stage and holding second overall until midday. Driving a non-hybrid Ford Puma Rally1, the 24-year-old Latvian fell to fifth in the afternoon, trailing full-time M-Sport Ford driver Adrien Fourmaux (in a more powerful, full-hybrid-spec Puma) by 0.2s after yielding position to the Frenchman in the day’s final stage.

Gregoire Munster, also driving a full-spec Puma, ended 21.3s adrift of the lead in sixth, with Neuville a further 8.5s behind. Eighth and last of the Rally1 machines went to Takamoto Katsuta, who struggled to find a comfortable rhythm in his GR Yaris.

In WRC2, the second tier of international rallying, Sami Pajari withstood the pressure of home hero Kajetan Kajetanowicz to build an 8.9s lead after Friday’s opening leg.

Pajari, the WRC2 winner last time out on Rally Italy, stormed ahead of overnight class pacesetter Oliver Solberg on Friday’s first stage and retained the top spot for the day’s entirety.

The Finn, driving a Toyota GR Yaris Rally2, had managed to build an 11.1s gap between himself and Kajetanowicz after the afternoon’s opening stage, but some committed and crowd-pleasing driving by Poland’s Kajetanowicz in the closing stages brought the deficit back down to single figures.

“It’s been a very good day for us,” said Pajari, who also held ninth in the rally’s overall standings overall. “So far it is going really well.”

Crews face seven more super-fast stages covering 77.11miles on Saturday’s second leg, including a third pass over the short super special stage next to Rally Poland’s Mikołajki base.

WRC Rally Poland, positions after Leg One, SS8
1 Andreas Mikkelsen/Torstein Eriksen (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) 59m43.7s
2 Kalle Rovanpera/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +1.8s
3 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +2.0s
4 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Ford Puma Rally1) +7.5s
5 Martins Sesks/Renars Francis (Ford Puma Rally1, non-hybrid) +7.7s
6 Gregoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1) +21.3s
7 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +29.8s
8 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +32.3s
9 Sami Pajari/Enni Malkonen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 – WRC2 leader) +2m15.6s
10 Kajetan Kajetanowicz/Maciej Szczepaniak (Skoda Fabia RS – WRC2) +2m24.5s

Check out WRC.com, the official home of the FIA World Rally Championship. And for the ultimate WRC experience, sign up for a Rally.TV subscription to watch all stages of every rally live and on demand, whenever and wherever.