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WRC Rally Latvia: Rovanperä takes control ahead of local hero

Jason Maverick

World champion Kalle Rovanperä has everything under control at the Rally Latvia and is in the lead after Friday ahead of surprise man local hero Sesks

The reigning two-time World Rally Champion Kalle Rovanperä had a near-perfect afternoon and extended his lead at the Rally Latvia over the up-and-coming Martins Sesks

The Finn won four of the seven special stages on Friday to take the lead at the first appearance of the World Rally Championship in Latvia ahead of impressive local hero Martins Sesks.

The Toyota driver set a lightning-fast pace and used his good track position with a clever tire choice to lead the high-speed gravel rally by 15.7 seconds.

Rovanperä’s first pursuer was Sesks, a two-time winner of the event as part of the European Rally Championship. The M-Sport driver caused a stir in the morning when he claimed his first WRC stage win in only his second start in Rally1.

Eight-time world champion Sebastien Ogier ended the day in third place (+21.6 seconds) ahead of his team-mate Takamoto Katsuta (+33.2), while M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux (+38.5) completed the top five.

Ott Tänak in the Hyundai was the best of the title contenders who had to contend with the most adverse road conditions, finishing sixth (+38.8) ahead of Elfyn Evans in the Toyota (+52.7), while championship leader Thierry Neuville was rather frustrated in ninth (+1:23.3) behind Gregoire Munster (+1:10.2) and ahead of Esapekka Lappi (+1:27.4).

Ogier’s courage is rewarded

Different tire strategies provided additional suspense before the afternoon stages, even though the time tables were similar to those of the morning round. The second pass of the Milzkalne (4.99 kilometers) made for a tough battle, with the ten Rally1 cars separated by just three seconds.

Compared to his rivals, Ogier opted for just one spare tire – a good decision, as he won the stage by a wafer-thin margin. The Toyota driver was 0.1 seconds ahead of his teammate Katsuta, but the Frenchman was unsure whether his tire choice would pay off.

With the weight of an extra spare wheel, Rovanpera was only a tenth behind, although the Finn extended his lead over Sesks by half a second to 3.7 seconds.

“Of course you feel the weight on such a fluid stage, everyone has different tire plans for this loop,” says Rovanperä. “We have a pretty tough stage ahead of us, followed by two more. Obviously the extra weight is not the best thing, but we’ll see how it goes.”

Fourmaux edged out his M-Sport teammate Sesks by 0.2 seconds, while Evans was the fastest of the championship contenders, although Fourmaux’s pace moved him ahead of Evans into sixth overall.

Tänak had made changes to the set-up of his i20 N in the tire change zone at midday to gain more confidence, but was unsure if they were successful.

Difficulties at Hyundai

Meanwhile, his Hyundai colleagues were also struggling with the difficult conditions. Lappi had a tire come off the rim, while Neuville, first on the grid, continued to struggle with the difficult road conditions.

Rovanperä took advantage of the situation and fitted two hard tires on the front axle of his GR Yaris, which was rewarded with the stage win after the second passage of Tukums (27.56 kilometers).

The Finn’s closest rival was Sesks, who was around 3.5 seconds slower than the world champion on the first pass in the morning on the stage that gave the local hero his first WRC stage win.

Ogier admits he had tried to drive calmly on the stage given his tire choice with only one hard tire. The 60-time rally winner finished the stage a tenth behind Sesks (two hard, three soft tires) and 0.1 seconds ahead of Tanak (three hard, three soft tires).

While Neuville continued to struggle with his position on the track, his Hyundai team-mate Lappi fared even worse, as changes to the set-up brought no improvement.

“We tried a lot of things, but it still doesn’t really seem to help. I think it’s the steering wheel and the seat, that might be the only solution,” said a dejected Lappi, who was 12.9 seconds behind

Rovanperä is doing well

Rovanperä extended his lead after his fourth stage win on the seventh leg (Strazde, 17.44 kilometers), which included parts of the morning loop and a completely new section with unmade roads.

The Finn felt he could have been faster, but he didn’t need to be as he was 1.7 seconds quicker than Sesks, who was once again best of the rest. Rovanperä’s lead over the Latvian grew to 8.9 seconds.

Thanks to Sesks’ impressive pace, his lead over Ogier, who set the third-fastest time, grew to five seconds

Sixth-placed Fourmaux had set himself the goal of catching Katsuta and Tänak in the battle for fourth place, and by the end of the stage he had made up time on his two rivals. With his fourth-fastest time, the M-Sport driver was 4.5 seconds behind fourth-placed Tänak, who had partially lost his brakes on the stage, and 1.6 seconds behind Katsuta.

On the final stage of the day, the 20.52-kilometre Talsi with asphalt and gravel sections, Fourmaux attacked once again. The Frenchman admits that in places it felt “like driving on ice”, but his efforts were rewarded as he overtook Tänak in the overall standings.

Katsuta also put in his best performance of the day, beating Fourmaux and Tänak to finish fourth overall, while Tänak dropped to sixth behind Fourmaux.

Nearly perfect afternoon

At the front, Rovanperä completed a near-perfect afternoon with his third stage win on the loop, 3.5 seconds ahead of the fast Katsuta. Munster also surprised with the third-fastest time.

“This was the first stage today where I had the feeling that we were driving properly,” says Rovanperä.

While Rovanperä was delighted, there was great disappointment in the Hyundai camp, as Neuville hit his steering wheel at the stage finish after ending the day 1:23.3 minutes behind and having to keep sweeping. Nevertheless, Neuville took over ninth place overall from Lappi, whose problems were getting worse.

In WRC2, Oliver Solberg finished the Friday with a whopping 31.1-second lead over Mikko Heikkilä, with Sami Pajari in third. Eight special stages over a total of 104 kilometers await the teams on Saturday

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