Kalle Rovanperä is a driver renowned for his speed, but hasn’t consistently managed to find it at this year’s Monte Carlo Rally.
After Friday’s leg the two-time world champion is fourth overall, but cut adrift of the leading trio former of team-mates Sébastien Ogier and Elfyn Evans plus Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux.
Rovanperä did clock a fastest time on Friday’s opening test when conditions were particularly icy, but hasn’t found the same pace on dry Tarmac.
Having tested for the Monte in “full snow” conditions, the Finn is low on running with Hankook’s soft compound – and he can feel it’s holding him back.
“It seems that now it’s quite clear when we can put some snow or studded tires under the car, it seems to work much better,” Rovanperä told DirtFish.
“When there is some slicks under the car, the balance and the feeling goes much more difficult. I think the slick just doesn’t work for my driving style so well yet. I need to change something.
Rovanperä has fared better when using Hankook's winter rubber
“In development also we didn’t really have this kind of dry or proper Tarmac condition,” he added.
“We need to try to compensate with the car as much as we can. And then I just need to try to learn to drive differently, because I think my natural driving style doesn’t work with this tire so well.”
Asked what about his driving style wasn’t working, Rovanperä explained: “I think it’s just how much you can load and what kind of load you can do with the tire, like combining the corners and braking.
“It’s different amount and different places that you can do. So I think that’s the thing.”
Rovanperä did at least avoid the drama that befell the likes of fellow world champions Thierry Neuville (who went off at the same corner on both runs of the same stage) and Ott Tänak (who lost the trunk of his Hyundai after swiping a telegraph pole when running wide through a ditch).
Ogier and Evans were also caught out at points – Ogier going wide into a ditch and Evans suffering a half-spin. Rovanperä, however, joked that “maybe it means we were too slow!”
His aim is to improve his speed on the soft tires with the weather expected to be drier (and more consistent) on Saturday.
“Well, I hope [I can be faster] because tomorrow seems to be a bit drier I think,” he said. “I think the biggest thing is just it doesn’t really suit me or my driving style, how I would need to drive the tire. So that’s always tricky when you need to start to change something like that.
“I don’t know what’s the answer. If I would know it, I would have already done it. So I know where the issue is, but I don’t know how to change it at the moment.”