LATVIA WIN FOR KING FINN ROVANPERA
Two-time champion “King” Kalle Rovanpera has risen to a third WRC victory in 2024 as a part-timer, making it back to back wins after dominating in Latvia.
Latvia the 37th country to host a FIA World Rally Championship round, with the rally mad Baltic nation playing host to Round 8 of 13, as a tight title fight continues to develop.
After winning Rally Poland as a short notice entry, Rovanpera and co-driver Jonne Haltunnen backed it up with a start to finish romp around the fast gravel roads of Riga.
It was a GR Yaris one-two after 20 stages and 300.13 km of timed specials, with Toyota’s other part-timer, nine time WRC champion Sebastien Ogier, finishing +39.2 seconds behind his 23-year old teammate.
And two weeks after his huge crash in Estonia in his Latvia warmup, Hyundai’s Ott Tanak took third, +1:04.5 in arrears, after local racer Martin Sesks’ M-Sport Ford Puma heartbreakingly suffered a transmission fault in the final stage to drop from what would have been a deserved podium in just his second WRC appearance.
Rovanpera entered Latvia just a few weeks after winning his first ever circuit race in the Porsche Carrera Cup Benelux series at Imola, and the youngest ever WRC champion reached another milestone in SS10, winning his 200th stage in just his 50th rally.
“It has been a great weekend, It is cool to have the first win here, Latvia is an important place for me,” Rovanpera said, who started his youth career in Latvia at the age of 12.
“Big thanks to Jonne and the whole team, we have been stronger than we expected. We are going to enjoy this one and then work hard for the next round in Finland.”
And whilst Rovanpera has won 14 WRC events, he is yet to win in his homeland.
After the shakedown went the way of Tanak, the opening stage on Thursday saw the flying Finn immediately on the front foot by +2.4 over championship leader Thierry Neuville. It was a unique opening stage as the rally cars competed on Latvia’s only dedicated motor circuit – the asphalt Biķernieki Track – over 11.3 km, in front of capacity grandstands.
Friday’s seven stages saw five of them fall to an ominously quick Rovanpera, but it was Sesks that impressed in his first rally with a Rally1 assist after competing in Poland without it – as per the new WRC rules in looking ahead to potentially expanding the Rally1 entries for 2025.
The 24-year-old Latvian driver took two stages (including his first ever WRC stage win) to finish the day +15.7 behind the Toyota, passing Ogier in the process, who also won two stages.
Saturday featured eight stages covering 104 km, and Rovanpera again left the field in the dust with 6 stage wins, whilst Ogier moved over Sesks, with Tanak having another mixed day highlighted by a bizarre incident.
Whilst Ogier moved into second by SS11, but would finish the say +42.5 back, and 4.7sec over Sesks, Tanak banked the Saturday classification points (championship points that can only be collected with a rally finish). But the Estonian had a strange incident when he had to stop to remove an inflatable arch that got tangled in his i20N, after Elfyn Evans clipped it ahead of him.
Despite the issue, as well as having braking problems on Friday. He remained in fourth but 20+ secs behind Sesks.
Sunday’s final four stages covered 64.08km as drivers returned toward Riga on repeated stages, and whilst Rovanpera winning was a near formality, the other story of the day would be Tanak’s three stage wins – including the final double point power stage – to collect vital championship points.
His podium would come via heartbreak for Sesks, who’s Rally1 Puma suffered its transmission failure in the first corner of the final stage whilst holding a 4 second buffer to Tanak.
That also elevated his teammate Adrien Fourmaux into fourth, 11.2sec over Evans and Toyota’s fourth car driven by Takamoto Katsuta.
With Sesks slipping back to seventh over Neuville, with Esapekka Lappi and Gregoire Munster rounding out the Rally1 field.
Taking P11 was the WRC2 winner, Swede Oliver Solberg in the Skoda, finishing +37.4 over Toyota’s Mikko Heikkila, with Sami Pajari rounding out the second tier podium with another GR Yaris.
In the title fight, Neuville still holds the championship lead despite struggling with grip over the last two gravel rally’s, but his lead has been cut down to just eight points by his Hyundai teammate, Tanak, who leapfrogged Evans into second by five points.
The next round of action is another super fast gravel event in the shape of Rally Finland on August 1-4 for Round 9, with only Greece, Chile, Central Europe, and Japan remaining.
WRC STANDINGS AFTER 8 ROUNDS
- Neuville 145
- Tanak 137
- Evans 132
- Ogier 117
- Fourmaux 101
Image: Jaanus Ree / Red Bull Content Pool
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