Peerless Rovanpera storms to Rally Estonia victory
Across Sunday's six stages, Rovanpera showed his rivals no mercy as he logged quickest times on three of these to wrap up the victory by a minute and nine seconds. It was another masterful display by the Toyota Gazoo Racing driver as he made it five wins from the first seven rounds of 2022.
"It was great again," said Rovanpera, who bagged five extra points on the Power Stage by traversing it 22.5 seconds quicker than anyone else. "Thanks to Jonne - it was a difficult weekend but we drove really well. Thanks to the team and everybody who is making the car really fast - we worked really hard in the tests to be competitive. And thanks to Akio [Toyoda] - it's great to be in the team and we will continue to push forward."
With Rovanpera extending his lead early on Sunday, team-mate Elfyn Evans adopted a cautious approach throughout, nursing his GR Yaris Rally1 through the ruts, and avoiding any potential hazards, to bag his third runner-up result of the year. The only blot in his copybook was a spin on SS20 - 'Kanepi'. "I came in a bit hot and the rear snapped away violently under braking. It was better to let it spin because we had plenty of space," he explained.
Ott Tanak persisted with the "tough job" aboard his Hyundai I20 N Rally1 to round out the podium places at the end of what proved to be "a long weekend" for the Estonian. The lack of development in the early part of the supermini's conception remains a sore point for the former World Rally Champion, who said: "There are many fundamental things that didn't go right [during the car's development] and now we are having to progress them as we go," adding: "We just need to start to win. The potential is there."
The same teething problems that affected Tanak were also writ large on the times being set by his Belgian team-mate, Thierry Neuville. With rain a big factor on Sunday, he said the slimy road conditions were akin to "driving on ice" and that contributed to a series of consecutive mishaps; he ran wide at a junction on SS20 and lost more time with a trip into the bushes on SS21 and and overshoot on SS22. To rub salt into the wounds, his windscreen fogged up early on the rally-ending Power Stage and that cost him the chance to salvage some additional points.
Toyota's Takamoto Katsuta - who crashed on shakedown back on Thursday - was another non-mover and, like Neuville, managed the cushion he had built up over sixth-placed Adrien Fourmaux to maintain his run of points-scoring finishes alongside Northern Ireland's Aaron Johnston. It was also his first finish in the Baltic state on five attempts. Esapekka Lappi was the final Rally1 finisher inside the top 10, which was completed by WRC2 winner Andreas Mikkelsen (Skoda Fabia Evo), Teemu Suninen (Hyundai i20 N Rally2) and Emil Lindholm (Skoda Fabia Evo).
M-Sport Ford’s Pierre-Louis Loubet and Gus Greensmith both retired from the morning loop with suspension damage and a suspected transmission fault respectively. Loubet caught a rock with his Puma Rally1 on the opening test with the front-left wheel and despite his best efforts to try and fix the car with co-driver Vincent Landais on the road section, it proved in vain.
