Latvala explains his personal WRC title-loss epiphany

Just hours after winning his first World Rally Championship as a team principal, an emotional Jari-Matti Latvala admitted he got it. Finally, he got it. Success from the inside had brought an understanding of what it was that he’d got wrong in his pursuit of the world title he dearly wanted.

And then he stopped. He moved on. Talked about something else and didn’t really offer a deeper analysis into the eureka moment he missed for the best part of two decades as a driver.

DirtFish didn’t want to leave it there. We decided to drill down further.

“Observing our drivers this season, I’ve seen how they have behaved during the season and I think the first mistake I did was that I went on the wrong track,” he said.

“I wouldn’t say I did this early in my career, more towards the end.

“I was on this wrong track maybe because I wanted to win the championship so much. The energy, how I used it, I used it wrong. I was thinking [about] the tire choices, then not making the decision, then waiting for the last-minute and maybe swapping them around.

“All of this was going on in my head.

“And then I was doing the same with the set-up. All the time, I was trying to find the optimum to be the best, the best, the best.

“I didn’t accept making a compromise and the focus started to go in the wrong way. I should’ve kept calm, thought about things and then made a decision and gone forwards.

“Like I said, my energy was focused in the wrong way. Instead of thinking all the time to the tires and the set-up, I can see now that I should have taken time in the service park to recharge my batteries. Instead, I was walking around all the time looking and thinking too much and already I couldn’t recharge myself.

“I think more fitness would’ve brought me more stability – this is what you see from the boys now, they’re in pretty good shape.”

Latvala said he is also convinced that he wanted the title almost too much.

“I tried to force the championship,” he said. “I tried to force it to come to me and you can’t do this. You can’t force it.

“If it doesn’t come to you, then you start to overthink the thing and then you’re trying so hard to do everything perfectly, trying to make everything right, to take every meter of the road.

“This overworking makes you lose the relaxed feelings. I could see this a little bit with Elfyn [Evans] in the middle of the season. I told him not to take the pressure of the championship, especially after Greece.

“Looking back, I think I should also have done more training. My fitness was OK, don’t get me wrong, and when I was at Volkswagen I was in good shape. I wasn’t in bad shape at Toyota, but maybe I should have done more.

“I think I had the speed [for the championship], that was not the problem, but I kept doing these mistakes. Maybe the extra fitness would have given me more stability and more focus. I can see this from the boys now.

“That’s what I learned. It would be nice now to tell myself these things earlier in my career. Maybe the story could have been different.”

Maybe.

But a drivers’ and manufacturers’ championship double in your first year as a team principal isn’t a bad introduction to the next chapter…