Rovanpera victory defied our expectations, admits Latvala

The talented Finn made it a third straight World Rally Championship triumph this season, with the first two coming on the snow-covered roads of February’s Rally Sweden and the slippery asphalt of last month’s Croatia Rally.

Rovanpera expertly minimised time loss due to his road sweeping duties on Friday in Portugal to end the first full day of action in second place, 13.6 seconds in arrears of his Toyota Gazoo Racing team-mate, Elfyn Evans.

With a more favourable road position for the duration of Saturday, Rovanpera continued to chip away at Evan’s buffer before the turning point came on that day’s penultimate stage, a 9.9 second deficit being turned into a 4 second lead. His case was helped by a rain shower that changed the characteristics of the ‘Amarante’ stage second time around, with Evans the biggest loser.

From that point on, Rovanpera never looked like surrendering his place at the top of the leaderboard and capped off a perfect weekend by going fastest on the Power Stage to bag a maximum 35 points haul to extend his lead in the Championship standings over Hyundai Motorsport driver Thierry Neuville to 46 points.

“Kalle won it completely against our expectations at the start of the event,” revealed Latvala. “It’s incredible how quickly he has grown and how he is able to deal with the pressure when he’s leading.

“Elfyn also did a really good rally – it was another one of those great and clean drives from him. He was so close to the victory, but these are really important points for himself in the championship,” he added.

Rovanpera also admitted the result had come as something of a shock to him as many considered him a rank outsider to finish on the top step of the podium prior to round four of the Championship.

“This victory was definitely a bit unexpected,” he said. “Starting first on the road on Friday, I didn’t think we could fight for the win like this. But we managed to stay close to the guys in front and build it from there. We had a good pace all the time and a problem-free rally and to get the maximum points was really nice.

“When we were behind, the plan was to keep the pressure on Elfyn and see what happened," he added. "I didn’t really think that we could step up the speed any more from what we already did. At the end we did some good times and Elfyn was fighting hard back. It was not easy."