Kalle Rovanperä feels he was powerless to avoid what he’s described as an “unbelievable” crash from the lead of Secto Rally Finland.
Rovanperä was in control of the event and set to end his wait for a victory on his home round of the World Rally Championship until the final section of SS19 Sahloinen-Moksi.
“Basically the last drivable corner in Moksi, second last stage, yeah, [there was] just a really big loose stone on the road and fast corner,” Rovanperä told DirtFish.
“Nothing this time I could actually do. When I saw the rock, no chance to avoid it. We hit it and it threw the whole car off the road, so we had a big crash because of that.”
Rovanperä confirmed the crash was in fourth gear.
“High-speed fourth gear, and yeah, straight out from the road,” he added.
“Yeah, quite an unbelievable feeling. Nothing we did wrong this time with Jonne. We did the perfect weekend until this. We had a huge lead to go for the win, and yeah, this time, just really bad luck with the stone.”
It seems as if Rally Finland is the rally Rovanperä just can’t win.
“Yeah, it seems like that.”
What happened to Evans?
Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans also crashed on SS19. The Welshman lost the rear at the first corner and further lengthened his odds at claiming this year’s title.
“I had a little bit of understeer on the way in, it took a lift and it’s just, yeah, had a bit more of a violent correction than what I’d anticipated let’s say, so fired us off into the ditch and across the other side of the road and that’s the end result unfortunately,” Evans told DirtFish.
“In fairness it didn’t feel so crazy in the car this morning,” he added. “This corner we managed it flat this morning, so I think that’s the bit that’s maybe caught us out there I would say.”
As for his world title hopes, Evans was already 13 points shy of series leader Thierry Neuville, who is now in second place and set to extend that gap massively.
“It’s looking more and more difficult now, that’s sure,” Evans admitted.
“It was already let’s say a gap we were not satisfied with but definitely within reach, but now obviously with this it’s definitely not helped at all but you know, we’ve four rallies left to go, anything can happen in this game and we have to just keep going.”
