Kalle Rovanperä, Ott Tänak and Esapekka Lappi would’ve been many people’s shouts to be the top three finishers on Rally Finland, rather than the three Rally1 drivers to crash out of it.
This weekend’s edition of the gravel grand prix certainly delivered in the drama stakes.
But who came out of the event winning, and who heads into the World Rally Championship’s summer break on the back foot?
After such a chaotic Friday, the losers rather picked themselves in Finland. But we’ve done our best to mix it up and create an interesting list, because of all the action is a bit longer on both sides than previous rounds!
Without further ado, here are our winners and losers from Rally Finland:
Winners
Elfyn Evans
Toyota is used to winning rallies in dominant fashion this season. Sébastien Ogier’s done it, Kalle Rovanperä’s done it.
But in the absence of both as Rally Finland intensified – Ogier already staying at home and Rovanperä heading to his after a Friday crash – the Toyota team needed somebody to step up and win their home rally.
And step up Elfyn Evans did.
He broke his Rally1 winning duck in Croatia, but Finland was far more of a statement. This was Evans back to his very best – dominating Saturday with some stunning times reminiscent of what Rovanperä managed a fortnight earlier in Estonia.
The fact he’s severely reduced his championship deficit almost doesn’t matter. It’s the confidence and ease at which Evans managed to set those times that will encourage his camp greatly for the future.
Takamoto Katsuta
Drained of any confidence and defeated in a final stage battle in Estonia, Takamoto Katsuta found himself in another tense fight in Finland.
Only this time he wasn’t drained of confidence, and he inflicted the defeat.
Sounding the lowest he’s been for a good while two weeks ago, Katsuta’s return to the podium this weekend was extremely well timed and very badly needed.
Although it was his own mistake that allowed Teemu Suninen to pass him, Katsuta drove expertly to retake the place with that epic stage win on Saturday’s final test – so denying team-mate Evans a clean sweep for the day too.
Hyundai and Suninen threw everything at him with the “team decision” for the Finn to take no spare tires on Sunday, but Katsuta still bested him to secure a very popular podium on the rally based in the city where he lives.
Jari-Matti Latvala
Arguably the biggest winner from Rally Finland. Find us another driver who was smiling as much as Jari-Matti Latvala was this weekend!
We’ll wait…
Officially, the mission for Latvala was to have fun but also learn about how the hybrid Rally1 cars work so he can understand the needs of his drivers more.
Make your own mind up about how important that really was to Latvala!
But either way all of these guys got into rallying because they love it, and it was great to see a driver (and co-driver) extract so much pleasure from a WRC weekend.
With the other hat on too, Latvala’s Toyota team extended its manufacturers’ championship lead once more and Evans was brimming with confidence. A win all round.
The WRC
We’re not going to get carried away here, Rovanperä is still the championship favorite. He’s the one with the 25-point cushion at the head of the field.
But had he not crashed out of Rally Finland, there’s every chance he’d have won the event and we’d therefore all have spent the next few weeks working out the permutations as to whether Rovanperä could clinch the championship in Greece.
His non-score, coupled to closest rival Evans winning, creates a far more interesting title narrative as the season reaches its crescendo.
The outcome probably won’t change for 2023 – Rovanperä still looks too good to let this drop. But there’s at least the potential for it to swing another way, which looked very unlikely after Estonia.
Losers
(Also) the WRC
As great as it is that the title battle looks a little less like a foregone conclusion, Rovanperä’s exit equally wasn’t a great look for the WRC.
Why?
With Tänak, Pierre-Louis Loubet and Esapekka Lappi already out of the running, Rovanperä’s exit left just five Rally1 cars running for the final three stages of Friday day.
That only one of them returned on Saturday (and, no offence to Loubet, it was the least exciting of them all) was hardly ideal for the spectacle at a time when WRC Promoter is trying hard to revolutionize the championship’s offering.
For the live TV slot on the powerstage, there were two more Rally2 cars than there were Rally1.
M-Sport
Off the back of Tänak’s high-profile five-minute penalty for a power unit change after shakedown in Estonia, the last thing M-Sport could afford was an engine-related retirement for Tänak in Finland – particularly as team principal Richard Millener is fighting to shield his colleagues from any hammering online. Ah.
In fairness, this one was rather different to what happened a fortnight ago. Bedrock on the inside of a corner was the culprit which led to Tänak’s sump guard cracking and the engine losing its oil. But this was still far from ideal.
To rub insult into injury, Loubet crashed on the very same stage. And just after Saturday went smoothly, he picked up an issue on Sunday morning
This little break before Acropolis Rally Greece can’t come soon enough for all at Dovenby Hall.
Adrien Fourmaux at least saved some grace for M-Sport with an impressive drive to second in WRC2 against such a talented field of Finns.
Kalle Rovanperä
It’s a bit ironic that it was not pushing that caused Rovanperä to roll out end-over-end in Finland, giving all the pre-event talk was of Rovanperä vying to manage the risks in pursuit of his maiden home win so as to not jeopardize his championship lead.
Everyone’s human. As we saw on Ypres Rally Belgium last year, there comes a point where even drivers as polished as Rovanperä are due mistakes.
But this one will hurt. He may play down the importance of a Rally Finland win to the media, but there’s no chance he isn’t motivated to win at home – particularly after his second crash in three years.
He’s left the door open for his rivals in the championship too, when really he should’ve come home from the weekend with the key in his hand just waiting to lock it.
Esapekka Lappi
Lappi’s season had been building up to this moment.
He’d been deeply impressive on the gravel in Hyundai machinery, but wait until he gets to the fast stuff! Estonia and Finland.
Estonia yielded a podium but he was a touch deflated to have been beaten by team-mate Neuville, and in Finland it just never quite got going.
Clearly trying hard to fight for the win, Lappi felt he was extracting everything but the times weren’t coming. Then he came across a sequence of corners too fast and speared off into the trees in what was a hefty accident.
A weekend he hoped to remember rapidly became one he’ll be desperate to forget.
