Rally Poland may have been a one-off in the World Rally Championship this year, but it created some unforgettable memories with some real standout drives.
As always, Colin Clark has dissected each of the Rally1 drivers’ performance from the weekend and delivered his ratings from round seven:
Toyota
Kalle Rovanperä – 10/10
Rovanperä's win proved he will win several more championships in the future, believes Clark
This was, perhaps, one of the most impressive performances of Rovanperä’s career. I don’t think many people gave him much of a chance of winning this one. But, as we’ve discovered over the years, he is a young man capable of doing just about anything in a rally car.
My biggest concern was for Jonne Halttunen. Co-drivers will spend weeks preparing for events. To turn up with zero preparation and perform as well as Jonne and Kalle did was an almost impossible task. He gets better and better – but you’d have to say he needed to deliver.
Rovanperä had underperformed and underdelivered for Toyota this year and, despite the last-minute circumstances, was still under a degree of pressure to perform here. But he stepped up to the mark and delivered a truly remarkable performance.
It’s frightening what he’s capable of. And if he returns to the championship, he will win every championship he competes in in the future. That must scare the heck out of the opposition. The likes of Neuville, Evans, and Tänak will know now, if they didn’t already, that this year is perhaps their biggest and best opportunity to secure a driver’s title.
Elfyn Evans – 8/10
Evans returned to the podium for the first time since Croatia
A welcome return to form for Elfyn Evans here in Mikołajki. Most encouragingly, no talk about how uncomfortable he was in the car. He found pace and he found a comfort level that was reassuring in terms of his championship challenge this year.
Make no mistake, Evans is a rally winner. On fast gravel, he is the bravest of the brave. When you need to be precise, his precision is laser-like. And that is why Evans showed the pace potentially to win this event. It was very, very unfortunate with the punctures, the delamination and the puncture that he picked up. But Evans will go away from this one with renewed hope that perhaps this year might be his year.
I do think he needs to win in Latvia or Finland to give himself a realistic chance of taking the title this year. And that is not going to be an easy task. I think he’ll be quicker than Neuville on both of those events. But I fear Tänak’s form may be more worrying for Evans than anyone’s right now.
Evans is a single-minded, focused competitor and he will only be concerned about factors that he can influence and change himself. And last weekend was been a positive experience for Evans.
Takamoto Katsuta – 3/10
Katsuta struggled in Poland, finishing last of the Rally1 runners who never retired
We’ve always been led to believe that fast gravel is Katsuta’s preferred surface. He has shown tenacity this year. He’s bounced back quickly from adversity. He’s shown a level of pace that allows him to compete for podium positions. And in Japan last year, we saw pace that ultimately, had he not had his early problems, could have won him the rally. He didn’t show any pace whatsoever here in Poland. And that is concerning for Katsuta.
There are too many troughs and not enough peaks right now. I gave him a three because he didn’t make any big mistakes. Is that a positive at this point in his career? I don’t know. He was roundly beaten by a junior debutant, making his first appearance in the championship.
Takamoto is the one driver who will go away from this event without any positives whatsoever. Every other driver will be able to find positives. Every other Rally1 driver will be able to find positives in their performances. Takamoto Katsuta will only see negatives.
Hyundai
Thierry Neuville – 6/10
Neuville lacked the same conviction that he has shown in recent events
There was nothing inspired from Neuville last weekend. OK, the powerstage win was impressive, but across the entire rally he struggled. He talked an awful lot about this new engine mapping, of which I suspect he’s a little miffed. I suspect the engine mapping perhaps suits Ott Tänak’s driving style better than it suits Neuville’s. I sense a little bit of a shift in focus at Hyundai, which is odd because clearly, Neuville still leads the championship.
Tänak is very much the driver with momentum. He’s not quite in the ascendancy yet, but he’s very much the driver with momentum. And that will concern Neuville. Yes, he was first on the road, but we’ve seen what he can do from first on the road on lots of events this year. While the powerstage was a strong rescue effort, the rest was not.
Neuville’s gap at the head of the championship has been reduced and he did not look like the intimidating, all-conquering, fighting force that he was on previous events. That will need to change quickly. Otherwise, by the time we leave Finland, we might see a very different championship picture.
Ott Tänak – 7/10
Tänak outlined his championship threat with his pace in Poland
We didn’t see enough of Tänak – but he was remarkably quick in that car when he was out there on shakedown, the first 15 kilometers of stage two and Sunday morning as first car on the road. Neuville complained an awful lot about how difficult first on the road was. Tänak made it look easy.
Hitting the deer is one of those things. You look at that and go, ‘I can’t buy any luck just now’. Well, when you can’t buy luck, you have to use your natural talents and abilities to fight, to battle, and to wrestle your way out of a difficult situation that you’re in. And that is exactly what Tänak is doing. I am liking the look of Tänak right now. He may still have that steely demeanour about him when we talk to him. But on the stages and in the car there is very little complaining, just positive action behind the steering wheel. We’ve seen glimpses of the domineering Tänak that we saw at Toyota when he became world champion.
While Neuville might be concerned about Evans and his solid pace on fast gravel, I’d be more concerned about Tänak. He was very, very good. And this week he’s getting a run out in a Rally1 car during Rally Estonia – very useful preparation for Latvia in a few weeks. There, my money is very much on the 2019 world champion.
Andreas Mikkelsen – 8/10
Mikkelsen answered a lot of questions with his performance in Poland
This was a really super performance from Mikkelsen. He was pretty woeful wasn’t he on Tarmac in that car, and questions were being asked about a) the decision to bring him back into Hyundai, and b) the decision to run him more on Tarmac events than on gravel events.
What he showed here in Poland – where he has won in the past, he has performed really well just about every time he’s been here in the past – is he still has an enormous amount of ability. He made the most of his road position on Friday but he consolidated that and kept the pressure on Kalle Rovanperä which is all that the team could ask.
Had he not had that unfortunate incident with a bank on Sunday morning, who knows? He may have put some pressure on Rovanperä for the win, but he did exactly what the team asked him to do. He came in, he took that car to the Toyotas and he delivered the manufacturer points that Hyundai so desperately need from their third driver.
Mikkelsen looked really, really good. He proved a point out there this weekend, and he answered a lot of very difficult questions.
M-Sport Ford
Adrien Fourmaux – 7/10
Fourmaux returned to the podium in Poland after a troubled Sardinia
Even though it was a podium, I’m giving him 7/10 because Fourmaux is setting himself such high standards these days. He was very quick, he was very consistent, made no mistakes, was a delight to watch in the stages, but he didn’t quite find that extra little bit of pace that was needed to challenge the Toyotas and the Hyundai at the head of the field.
That will come, and I’m sure of that, and the progress that Formaux is making right now suggests to me that that pace could well come by the time we get to Finland in two rallies time.
There were enormous positives all round for M-Sport this weekend, but the return to form for Fourmaux is the biggest positive. They’re building that team around the young Frenchman and he’s paying them back. They’ve put faith in him and he is showing that that faith is well placed. Fourmaux is looking good this year, make no mistake about that. A seven might seem harsh, but it gives him something to work towards.
Mārtiņš Sesks – 10/10
Sesks punched in one of the most debut performances of recent times
Top-notch performance, top quality, remarkable speed, remarkable patience, remarkable perseverance, stuck at it, found a level of performance that you’d have almost thought was impossible from someone driving a Rally 1 car for the first time. For me, it’s just come completely out of the blue.
Yes, he’s been around for a couple of years, we’ve seen his name on ERC timesheets, we’ve seen his name at the top of ERC timesheets, but I’d never really heard too many people talking about Sesks as the next great thing.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, but you have to say in terms of junior drivers who have made the breakthrough over the last few years, have had the opportunity in the Rally 1 car – there far too few, I’ll grant you that – but in terms of drivers who have, that is the most impressive debut we’ve seen. If he can do that much on his first outing in a Rally 1 car, how much more is there to come?
He impressed me with his learning ability and his learning pace. He didn’t just go in there to pootle around to get the mileage, ‘I’ve got this opportunity, I’m going to do every stage, don’t care about the times’. He went in there and he learned. He learned every time he got in the car. He talked a lot about it being four different cars effectively. As the aero kicked in at different speeds, the car started handling differently.
To learn that is an absolute art. And Sesks mastered that art beautifully this weekend – one of the most impressive debuts I have ever seen.
And on top of that, an absolute joy and a delight to talk to. And you know what? Some of the seasoned campaigners can learn from that. Rallying, yeah, it’s about the action, but it’s about the characters. And if drivers are balshy and don’t talk to us and come across as being a little bit grumpy and all the rest, you know, people don’t warm to them. People warm to characters who smile, who talk, who clearly enjoy what they’re doing, enjoy their job, enjoy their sport. And that is how a sport grows and progresses.
Sesks potentially is the future of the sport. He’s got an awful lot going for him. And I, for one, enjoyed every single minute of watching him and talking to him this weekend.
Grégoire Munster – 6/10
Seventh wasn't Munster's best result, but Poland was his best WRC performance to date
Yes he finished fifth in Sardinia – his best finish in the championship – and he was seventh here, but this was his best performance in the championship so far. He showed some real pace and, importantly, he showed that he can listen, that he can combine pace with performance, with consistency.
That’s the important thing – finding a consistent, comfortable pace is the first step to progress in these cars. And that’s what he did here, and he looked really good. He set some really impressive stage times out there. You have to say the Puma really does seem to suit these stages well, and young Munster seems to enjoy these stages. You put the two together and you’ve got a really strong performance from Grégoire Munster this weekend.
He needs to continue that over the next two rallies and, you know what, he has the opportunity now. When we go from Tarmac to gravel to snow and ice to fast gravel, slow gravel, tough gravel, it’s difficult to find consistency. He’s got three events here where he can more or less go with the same setup and he can build and build and build.
He’ll have a target for Finland for sure and he certainly made a good start in making his way towards that target.
