Jari-Matti Latvala has been through some tough days in his World Rally Championship career, but last Sunday was among the toughest.
It was, in his words, the hardest since he became Toyota’s team principal.
That may seem bizarre given how positive a day it was for the WRC’s exposure, and Toyota claimed its seventh drivers’ championship from eight seasons.
But while one of the team’s drivers won, another lost – and lost in such painful circumstances.
“I have to say it’s been probably the hardest day of my career being a team principal,” Latvala told DirtFish.
“When you see one driver losing the championship 200 meters before the end in the second last corner, and when you see the other driver who has been finishing five times second and pushing and trying to get that championship, he finally gets it… it’s a very, very controversial feeling when you try to support everybody.”
Unlike individual rally engineers Rui Soares (Elfyn Evans) and Steffan Williams (Oliver Solberg), Latvala had no bias. His job is to support everybody, and how he reacted in those moments where the championship was decided would be noticed.
He chose to be the first person to speak to Solberg, still in the car, at the powerstage stop-line before joining any celebrations with the new world champion Evans.
“Oliver was completely devastated,” Latvala said. “He was crying and, you know, he was… you can see that, you know he had everything in his hands and he lost it, and he was so devastated.
“I tried to cheer him up to say that, you know, he has won the rally. He is the fastest driver in the championship, but the time wasn’t right to win the title.
“He will be a multiple-time world champion in the future, but we just need to look to the future. But I know this word doesn’t really give the help at this moment. He needs a bit of a time to heal it, but he will be coming back strong, I’m sure.”
As for Evans, Latvala competed against him for several years as a driver before becoming his boss when he succeeded Tommi Mäkinen as Toyota team principal in 2021.
Latvala fears if Evans hadn't won this year, he might never have
“He’s been working harder than anybody else,” Latvala praised. “I mean, the workload he has done for that title, nobody has done so much work.
“And I think in one way, in this life, the karma works that the work he has done brought the championship to him now because if he hadn’t won it today, I don’t know if he had ever got it.
“Winning that one title now actually can make him more relaxed for the future,” Latvala added. “It actually can help him to fight in the championship more for the titles.
“But if he had now been defeated, it takes so much energy to come back when you are so close and so many times. It’s going to be so hard for the mental side. But I think this makes him stronger for the future.”
