Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala says ‘all the elements are there’ for Kalle Rovanperä to score his first World Rally Championship victory on Arctic Rally Finland this weekend.
Rovanperä, who has a solitary podium to his name in his WRC career to date, will start the Arctic round fourth on the road on day one following his fourth-place finish on the season-opening Monte Carlo Rally last month.
Arctic Rally Finland is tipped to be one of the WRC’s fastest ever events, and Latvala said he thinks the rally will suit Rovanperä’s style, although he was keen not to put pressure on the Toyota protégé.
“There are all the elements I think for Kalle to win this event, but we have to remember that rallying, things can happen which can influence your performance,” said Latvala, when asked by DirtFish if he thought Rovanperä could win.
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“I would say to Kalle that the victory will come when the time is right. And if the time is not right here, there are two events like Rally Finland, Rally Estonia; they are as strong for him to win as Arctic Rally.”
Although road sweeping on snow rallies does not generally produce the same sort of visibility issues as on gravel events, the lack of ice on the roads could cause problems for those further down the starting order.
Latvala said Rovanperä can exploit a more favorable road position in conditions he labeled “perfect”.
“I think actually Kalle’s place, the fourth car on the road is very, very ideal,” he explained.
“We spoke about earlier with the Finnish media after seeing the roads here because they did the Finnish championship Arctic Rally here, the roads don’t have so much ice on the top of the surfaces as normally you would expect.
“The conditions otherwise are perfect because you have a big, big snowbanks, the roads are quite wide so they are in quite good condition, but unfortunately there’s not that much ice and the gravel will come up and for sure it will be hard for the tires.
“So, it’s not easy to be the first car on the road but I don’t know if it’s the best to be let’s say the last of or the end of the WRC car field, so somewhere in the midpoint is the best place to start.”
Rovanperä, who won the Arctic Rally last year in a Yaris WRC, is hoping to be in the victory fight this weekend but said he would need a “perfect” rally to come out on top.
“I think I have to be in the podium fight,” Rovanperä said.
Photo: Jaanus Ree/Red Bull Content Pool
“Hopefully also we can fight for the top place because here, it looks possible and I know in the WRC it’s really difficult to win an event, you need to be perfect all the weekend and everything has to be right on your way.”
He added that warmer temperatures on Thursday and Friday would likely make the roads more difficult and, in some cases, leave stages more degraded with each passing car.
“It’s not so cold anymore, so that can change something depending on the conditions, but I still think the stages look in a really good condition,” Rovanperä said.
“There are some parts where we can have gravel ruts for the second pass.
“I think with the long stages it can be quite rough for the tire, so hopefully we don’t have to take care of the tires so much but there is also a possibility that sometimes you cannot push like normally in this kind of snow rally.
“I think there’s going to be some tire saving and things like this needed.”
