After two World Rally Championship titles on the bounce, Kalle Rovanperä wanted a break from it all. He’d planned to contest only a part season, just like fellow world champion Sébastien Ogier had been since the beginning of the Rally1 era in 2022.
But with Toyota lagging behind Hyundai in the title race, Ogier changed tack. In the first half of the year he’d kept the team’s title hopes afloat in both championship classifications and after Rally Finland, had agreed to see out all the remaining rounds to help his team’s efforts.
Rovanperä hasn’t budged. He wasn’t in the lineup for Central European Rally and won’t be going to Japan either.
Toyota needs to outscore Hyundai by 16 points to pull off a last-gasp smash and grab of the title. Given what’s at stake, having the strongest lineup possible – in other words, two world champions – would surely be warranted. But Rovanperä doesn’t see it that way, believing he wouldn’t provide a significant advantage to Toyota’s chances from being present in Japan.
“It’s easy to think like this but to be honest, I think the guys can do a good job in Japan,” Rovanperä told DirtFish. “I was never so happy to drive on the stages in Japan; they are not naturally comfortable stages for me.”
Though he admitted such an argument made sense at face value, he was also determined to preserve his original plan of a half season before stepping back into the cockpit full-time from next year’s Monte Carlo Rally.
Rovanperä doesn't feel the nature of Japan's stages suit him
“I understand it but also I have done half the season, which was my plan,” he said. “And if we look at this that way, I should have been in all the rallies after Rally Finland to help the championship – but then it’s not a half season for me. So at some point you need to draw the line if you want to do the half season or not and unfortunately I can’t be there helping the team. But of course, I would want to be doing the best I can for the team.”
Without Rovanperä in the fold for Japan, Takamoto Katsuta will be scoring manufacturers’ points in the third car alongside Ogier and Elfyn Evans. Katsuta was benched by Toyota only two rallies ago in Chile, replaced in the non-points-scoring fourth entry by Sami Pajari.
Rally Japan was Katsuta’s strongest event last season, winning 10 stages albeit only after going off the road and crashing into a tree on the opening day.
But Rovanperä is convinced the home hero can be pivotal to Toyota’s title bid on the season finale, suggesting his performance on Central European Rally had demonstrated his Chile demotion had made the desired impact.
“Last year, Taka was super good in Japan and I hope he will have a good weekend again,” said Rovanperä. “He can definitely do a good result there.
“I spoke with him quite a lot when he was out for the one rally, just discussing with him what he thinks about it and just try to give him a good feeling that probably it’s a good thing: like you can do something else to reset, you can try to try to change a bit your approach, your mindset, and I think he did.”
Though he’d given his backing to his team-mate to get the job done in Japan in terms of their own performances, Rovanperä also conceded the title race is partially out of their hands.
“Unfortunately there have been a few rallies this year where we lost a lot of important points on Sunday and it takes a big hit on the championship,” he said. “But of course they are trying their best to do it. I hope they can pull it off but I think we need to have all the situations on our side.”
