Esapekka Lappi has admitted that while he expected to win stages on this week’s Rally Sweden upon his World Rally Championship return, doing so on the opening loop of stages was a surprise.
Lappi is currently sixth overall, 14 seconds down on rally-leading Toyota team-mate Kalle Rovanperä, but had been leading the rally himself after the second special stage when he posted the fastest time.
Asked how good it felt to be back in the WRC – after a year of minimal competition in 2021 – and in a fight at the front, Lappi said: ” So good.
“I’m so proud of the stage win already. I mean I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly. I was hoping for it later in the weekend but [it was a] good start.
“Yeah we lost [time] but still we are in the battle. We are not far away from the lead, we lost a lot of time but still we are fighting for the second place so that’s so cool.”
Lappi’s time loss on SS3 was predominantly down to a stall on the start-line, but his GR Yaris Rally1 was also without its additional hybrid power for the entire 10.74-mile stage.
“We stall on the startline and then I tried to start with the hybrid and it didn’t work and [we] lost more time probably,” Lappi said.
“And maybe I lost a bit of momentum over there to be honest, but in the other hand as well on stage two on the big road I didn’t feel comfortable and stage three was pretty, not a big road but bloody fast and over there I’m not confident enough.
“I know that the corner should be flat but [I do] not do it flat, so we need to try to change some small things on the car because on the small road everything goes fine but [on the] big, fast sections things are not perfect yet.”
