TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team leads after a strong first full day on the fast forest roads of Rally Latvia, with Kalle Rovanperä still out front and three cars in the top four places.
After Thursday night’s opening super special stage in the capital city Riga, Friday would be the longest day of the event with seven stages and 120.92 competitive kilometres that took crews north-west. There would be no opportunity for service until crews returned to Liepāja at the end of the day, only tyre-fitting zones before the morning and afternoon loops.
In the country where he began his rally career as a teenager, Rovanperä extended his early lead by winning the morning’s first stage, though competition remained tight and his advantage stood at a relatively slender 3.2 seconds after the initial loop of three tests. He would however win three of the four stages run in the afternoon, with his time in the closing Talsi test enough to increase his advantage from 8.9 to 15.7s over local favourite Mārtiņš Sesks (M-Sport Ford).
Sébastien Ogier had a strong return to action after missing the previous round in Poland and is the highest-placed driver new to Latvian roads. He set the fastest time in SS5 and is just 5.9s away from second place overnight.
Takamoto Katsuta also performed well, particularly in the afternoon where he was second-fastest to Ogier in SS5 and to Rovanperä in SS8 – that last time good enough for him to gain fourth overall.
Elfyn Evans faced tough conditions running second on the loose gravel roads as per his championship position but did well to limit his time loss relative to his main rivals and is seventh overall.
Quotes:
Jari-Matti Latvala (Team Principal)
“It’s been a very good day. We know that fast events like this usually suit our car and our drivers, but we also knew that the competition could be really strong, so we’re positively surprised by the level of performance we’ve had. Kalle has obviously been fast, but we should also give credit to Sesks because he is driving well. Seb has also been driving well: the speed was there from the first stage and that’s good to see as he hasn’t done so many fast rallies recently after missing Poland. Taka has shown good progress after Poland, improving throughout the day and managing to take fourth position at the end. For Elfyn we knew it could be difficult with his road position, but he's doing a good job and if he can stay ahead of Neuville that’s positive for him. Overall we have some nice positions going into Saturday, but the competition is going to be tough and I’m sure everybody will be pushing for the best position tomorrow night.”
Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“It was quite a good day. I didn’t have the perfect feeling but we made no mistakes and I think we did a good job. This morning I wasn’t feeling so confident in the car, and the conditions were quite slippery. It was hard to change much with only a tyre-fitting zone and not a proper service, but we tried to improve the car and push more for the afternoon and we found a bit of a better feeling. We kept it clean, didn’t push too much when the feeling wasn’t the best and still some good times came. The tyre strategy was also really good. We need to try and find something for tomorrow to have more of a consistent feeling but otherwise it’s been good.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“It’s been an OK day for us. The road evolution was quite clear with every car that passed: there was a lot of loose gravel, more than in Poland, and that’s made it harder to fight with the drivers starting behind us. There was not a lot we could do about it, so we just had to focus on doing the best we could, try to stay in touch and improve our road position for tomorrow. The feeling in the car was OK and the driving was not too bad, so I don’t think there was a lot more time left to be found. Our position will be a bit better for tomorrow, and every place helps, so let’s see what’s possible.”
Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17)
“I enjoyed it a lot today, it was good fun in the car after a couple of years for me without doing this kind of fast event. I’m also happy with the performance. We’ve seen a massive cleaning effect today and although we were not in the worst position on the road, we only had three cars in front of us so it was also slippery for us in some moments. I felt good in the car and the pacenotes were good. It’s positive to be where we are tonight, and it’s been a good day for the team. We’re not really in a fight with Kalle, but it’s an interesting fight for second and we will do our best to carry on like this tomorrow.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18)
“It went well today. The stages here in Latvia are nice and I’m enjoying them a lot. The roads all look quite similar and are hard to memorise, so I just needed to focus on the pacenotes and they were working well. I enjoyed it in the car, it was feeling really good. This morning we tried a few things between the stages and found some positive steps: I just needed to be a bit more committed in my driving. In the afternoon it was difficult to manage the tyres over such a long loop, but still we were able to push in the final stage and gain a position which was good. So far it’s been much better than in Poland and I hope we can just continue like this.”
End of day two (Friday):
1 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) 1h08m44.5s
2 Mārtiņš Sesks/Renārs Francis (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) +15.7s
3 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +21.6s
4 Takamoto Katsuta/Aaron Johnston (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +33.2s
5 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) +38.5s
6 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +38.8s
7 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +52.7s
8 Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) +1m10.2s
9 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +1m23.3s
10 Esapekka Lappi/Janne Ferm (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +1m27.4s
(Results as of 21:00 on Thursday, for the latest results please visit www.wrc.com)
What's next?
Saturday’s action takes place closer to Liepāja, which hosts a mid-day service separating two loops of four stages. Only one of the morning’s tests – Vecpils – is repeated in identical form in the afternoon, with two stages running significantly modified and a short street stage rounding out the day.
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