Kalle Rovanperä won his second World Rally Championship event in succession by scoring a 39.2-second victory over Toyota team-mate Sébastien Ogier – but there was late heartbreak for home hero Mārtiņš Sesks.
Sesks had looked on course for a maiden WRC podium on just his second start, holding third place by 4.6s over Ott Tänak ahead of the powerstage. But a technical problem on that last stage dropped him all the way down to seventh.
“It was the first corner, we don’t know if it’s a diff[erential] problem or something like that but already from the first corner we understood that it’s over,” Sesks said, who heroically got on top of his car and embraced the fans at the end of the stage.
“But I think we showed our pace and we made everyone happy, so it was just not our time.”
Tänak was the beneficiary on a weekend where he made the biggest gains in the drivers’ championship, leaping ahead of Elfyn Evans and trimming Thierry Neuville’s lead to just eight points after finishing third overall and collecting all 12 points on Super Sunday.
Tänak lauded Sesks' performance after inheriting the final podium position
But he had classy words for Sesks at the end.
“To Martins, I must say incredible job he’s done,” Tänak said. “For sure he knows the roads very well, it’s his home country and so on – but nobody can take his driving away.
“In the end it’s about driving and whatever the outcome is, the podium on the first time would have been great but it only makes him harder and stronger. Fair play to him, he made us push so he’s had a really great weekend. Everybody in Latvia should be proud.”
A brand-new addition to the WRC calendar for 2024 as it stepped up from the European Rally Championship schedule, Rally Latvia began on Thursday evening with a lengthy superspecial, but the real action was out in the forests.
Immediately, Rovanperä – who grew up competing on Latvian roads – hit the front, and despite a pair of stage wins for M-Sport’s local star Sesks on Friday morning, was realistically never challenged as he secured a comfortable third win of his part-time campaign; making him 2024’s most successful driver so far in terms of event wins.
“It has been a great weekend,” Rovanperä said.
“It’s quite cool having almost my third home rally in a way, it’s cool to have the first win here. Latvia has been an important place for me. I think we were a bit stronger than we expected this weekend so I think the team did a good job.”
Ogier couldn’t match the speed of Rovanperä so slotted into a comfortable second in the end, but despite his best efforts missed out on top Super Sunday points to Tänak by just 0.2s.
Ogier missed out on maximum Sunday classification points by only 0.2s to Tänak
Evans ended up fifth overall for Toyota behind M-Sport driver Adrien Fourmaux, who had an up-and-down weekend with a confusing lack of pace to start with, before an impressive response but then an undiagnosed issue on the last two stages as well as a broken front bumper.
Frustratingly for Evans though, he missed out on vital points to Neuville on the powerstage.
“For sure there was more than that time there, so that’s frustrating,” Evans said of his powerstage.
“Relative to Thierry we didn’t do so bad on Friday, maybe could’ve done more on Saturday,” he added. “It’s not been bad but with a road position like this it’s hard to have an amazing weekend.”
Evans was one spot up on team-mate Takamoto Katsuta who had been ahead before he misjudged his braking into a chicane on Saturday morning and nosed a tree. The Japanese paid a heavy price for his mistake as the contact with the tree broke his power steering and severely restricted his pace.
Neuville meanwhile cut a frustrated figure all weekend, hamstrung by running first on the road and allowing that frustration to boil over at the end of Friday when he finished 10th and last of the Rally1 cars on merit.
Neuville's lead in the title race has been slashed to only eight points by his team-mate Tänak
Team-mate Esapekka Lappi was however asked to drop time and cede position to Neuville to demote the Belgian one spot behind Lappi in Saturday’s running order – a move that was only possible because Lappi struggled badly for any grip or confidence on Friday.
Both Hyundais moved ahead of Grégoire Munster – who ended the event carrying a mysterious issue aboard his Puma Rally1 – but disaster struck Lappi on the powerstage as he completed the test with a very sick-sounding engine.
“After one kilometer the engine is finished,” Lappi said. His car was then retired by Hyundai after powerstage finish.
As Neuville, for the second weekend in a row Neuville saw his championship lead diminish and was relatively powerless to prevent it.
“Nobody could say we didn’t try everything this weekend,” Neuville said.
“I’ve nothing to add to be honest, I just want to thank the team for being resilient and patient knowing that we had not much chances this weekend. It was hard to accept but it is like this.
“It was probably the worst rally we have ever seen in terms of cleaning and no repeat stages and lots of fast drivers back in the field, so I don’t know what we could have done more.”
Solberg scored his second WRC2 win of the season in Latvia
Victory for Oliver Solberg, his first since Sweden in February, was a much-needed boost to his title campaign, and it was a masterful performance as the Škoda driver simply left the others for dead on Friday.
The final two days were then all about managing his lead, which finally stood at 37.4s over Finn Mikko Heikkilä.
“It’s a fantastic feeling to finally win again,” Solberg said. “It’s been a few tough rallies but amazing to be back in the proper speed.
“Winning here in Latvia is a great feeling, it’s pretty emotional – I’ve won here many times before and it’s where I started my career, so it’s special to have this moment.”
Second represented a first WRC2 podium for Heikkilä who bested Sami Pajari by 7.4s in an all-Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 battle for position. After two WRC2 wins on the bounce, Pajari had been expected to perform better in Latvia – in the end, he finished 44.8s adrift of Solberg.
“It’s rallying, you cannot win always,” Pajari said. “Still the season has been really good and still really solid points with third place here, so it has been really good for us.
“Always you are trying to do your best so I am not fully satisfied with it, but anyway it’s still a good result.”
