The World Rally Championship took another step into the unknown last week with its first ever visit to Latvia.
Or should that be relative unknown, because after years of inclusion in the European Rally Championship, and a fast nature of stages that’s becoming familiar to most, there was a reasonable idea of what crews could expect on round eight.
But regardless, the event certainly delivered plenty of talking points and played another vital role in the ever-shifting battle for both the drivers’ and manufacturers’ championship titles.
Here’s what we learned from an at times political, and definitely emotional, Rally Latvia 2024:
Toyota still can’t master Sundays
For what was originally sold to the world as a seat share, Kalle Rovanperä and Sébastien Ogier competing on the same events in the WRC is becoming a rather regular occurrence.
But that’s no coincidence, because Toyota has clearly woken up to Hyundai’s superiority on Sundays, and has begun to use its two part-time world champions and their lower opening day starting positions to block points from Hyundai.
The issue is, Ott Tänak still pipped it to the post in Latvia.
Ogier and Rovanperä were clearly prioritizing points on Sunday – certainly more than they had been at the start of the season – purely to help the team rather than themselves, and in fairness Ogier in particular did come close. Two tenths were all that settled Super Sunday in Tänak’s favor, but Toyota can’t keep falling on the wrong side of these tight margins.
Elfyn Evans, for example, made a mistake on the powerstage which likely cost him two positions and thereby two points to title rival Thierry Neuville, and Takamoto Katsuta – starting one car behind Neuville – fell an agonizing 0.056s short of felling the Belgian, and was unusually angry at the stop-line:
“If I am not faster than Thierry then I am not happy. That was my target today… f***!”
Perhaps Latvia was simply just a reflection of Tänak’s brilliance on a Sunday rather than a particular Toyota failing because, after all, Toyota has slimmed its championship deficit to Hyundai to just one point.
But the statistics don’t lie. Toyota has won five rallies of eight so far this season, yet Hyundai has scored 149 Sunday points to Toyota’s 124. It’s not hard to see where the difference is being made.
Championship momentum shifting towards Tänak
There was a point earlier in the season where a Thierry Neuville world title was beginning to look somewhat inevitable – but not any more.
Since his whoopsie in Sardinia, the tide has begun to turn against Neuville whose points lead has been chipped into in each of the past two events – and he certainly seemed to let that pressure get to him in Latvia with his tirade about road position at the end of Friday.
But the Belgian’s saving grace has been he hasn’t had one consistent challenger, but two who are yo-yoing between each other to be Neuville’s chaser-in-chief.
Tänak looks like he could be changing that. He took what could be viewed (particularly with hindsight later this year) a decisive step in Latvia in comprehensively outperforming both Neuville and Evans.
Granted, the Estonian did have the best road position of the trio, but that isn’t what made the difference. Esapekka Lappi made an interesting observation about his team-mate before the event, saying he felt Tänak has “found the confidence he had many years ago” when at Toyota. Based on the weekend, it’s hard to disagree.
Tänak wasn’t fully happy with the car, and there were obviously some hiccups (remember that arch incident on Saturday afternoon!) but he maximized everything to score double Evans’ points tally and 13 more than Neuville, leaving him just eight behind in the standings.
With Rally Finland next, the momentum really is now with Tänak. It’s up to Neuville to respond, and Evans to ensure he doesn’t get left behind.
Ogier can still cut it on fast gravel rallies
There was a misconception that Sébastien Ogier wasn’t interested in doing any more fast rallies.
“Did I really say that?” he asked ahead of Rally Latvia. “I think it’s more an idea or general thinking that I would not be a fan of fast rallies.”
It was still a surprise to see Ogier’s name on the entry list for Poland (before he was forced to miss it), Latvia and the upcoming Finland – and not all just because Toyota asked him to do them.
Since making the decision to go part-time in the WRC, Ogier has steered clear of the high-speed Baltic rallies, so it was hard to know just how quick he’d be. Typically, he was very quick indeed.
While unable to match Rovanperä who Ogier felt was in a “different league” – and not just because of his road position – the eight-time world champion targeted second place behind his team-mate, thus securing the perfect team result.
And that’s exactly what he achieved.
Ogier hinted that he had a few doubts himself how he’d fare given he hadn’t driven on that type of event since 2021, but yet again the 40-year-old proved his class. As much as he tries to resist it and dislikes any conversation about number nine, it’s still very clear Ogier can do the job absolutely anywhere he goes.
His value to Toyota is immeasurable, even three years into his supposed retirement.
M-Sport’s reliability woes not totally in the past
It’s important not to be hyperbolic here: M-Sport’s Ford Puma Rally1 wasn’t straight-up unreliable in Latvia. After all, only one car retired with a technical fault at the weekend, and it wasn’t a Ford.
But equally, there’s little escaping the fact that all three Pumas ran into some form of technical trouble on the final day of Rally Latvia, and that should be something for Richard Millener’s squad to keep an eye on.
The Puma’s pace continues to be strong considering M-Sport’s lack of development budget relative to its rivals. Perhaps its engine is not as potent, but it is still a car capable of winning stages and winning rallies.
What held it back most last season were niggling reliability problems, which M-Sport did well to mitigate for 2024. But Latvia was a reminder that the team can’t rest on its laurels.
At the time of writing, Adrien Fourmaux and Mārtiņš Sesks’ problems are undiagnosed, but Grégoire Munster’s appeared to relate to fuel – whether that was fuel pressure, or a fuel pump is again not yet known, at least to the public. But Munster did suggest it was a similar issue to Portugal, where he suffered a fuel-pressure problem.
As team principal Millener phrased it, he’s not concerned any of these are “grave issues we need to worry about”, rather just little frustrating niggles that can crop up in motorsport.
But there will be investigations back at Dovenby Hall this week to make sure this is registered as just a blip and not a trend.
Pajari’s not invincible in WRC2
In many respects Oliver Solberg bucked the cliché of ‘you can’t win a rally in a superspecial but you can certainly lose it’.
The Swede was epic everywhere across the first two legs of Rally Latvia, but to lead by 7.6s after a spectator stage was a massive statement of intent and set Solberg up for a mega weekend.
Nobody had an answer for the Škoda driver’s pace on Friday, and he found himself half a minute clear of the rest and then into conservation mode for the final two days.
The surprise, though, wasn’t that Solberg was so quick, it was that Sami Pajari wasn’t there with him.
After two mega, back-to-back victories on two very different events in Sardinia and Poland, Pajari and the Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 were beginning to look a touch invincible.
The clever money was on a Pajari hat-trick in Latvia – or at least for him to make a fight for it. But instead he was “lost” and not even in the same ballpark as Solberg on Friday, and by that point the damage had been done. Third was by no means a disaster for his championship, but the result perhaps swings the momentum back towards Solberg and Škoda in the title race.
In a strange way, it’s almost a shame that Pajari steps up to a Rally1 car in Finland as we won’t be able to measure his response. Not that Sami will see things that way, of course…
Sesks is a brilliant example for other young drivers
Mārtiņš Sesks picked the right pair of rallies (Poland and Latvia) where his lack of WRC experience was offset by his superior knowledge of the events, and he benefited from a good road position on Friday.
But a Rally1 car does not drive itself, so Sesks deserves all the credit he is getting for two utterly dazzling performances at the sport’s top level.
Expectations were high for Latvia, given how well Sesks performed in Poland, and the home hero didn’t disappoint. Claiming his first pair of stage wins on Friday, there was a spell where it looked as if he may be able to fight for the win, but at the very least he should have got a breakthrough podium.
For that podium to be ripped from his grasp was truly heartbreaking, but Sesks displayed an unbelievable strength of character to accept it and lap up the adoration of the crowd at the final stop-line. That said as much about his abilities as any of his driving did.
This entire Latvia performance does little to quell the hype that’s now surrounding the 24-year-old, who’s firmly put himself on the radar for future opportunities. For the good of his own career, if any further opportunity does arise, it should be on a different style of event than the fast gravel of Poland and Latvia where Sesks is clearly a specialist.
But what Sesks’ recent drives also do is provide great hope and encouragement for fellow aspiring drivers on the periphery of the WRC. This will act as proof to all of them that, given the right opportunity, they can mix it with the very best in the world.
The challenge now is making the top class cars more affordable so that more promising drivers can do exactly that.
