A stone flew into Esapekka Lapi’s windshield with quite a twist. The setback was unfortunate in the tight victory struggle of the Jyväskylä World Rally Championship.
Esapekka Lappi had bad luck at Päijälä’s special exam. The stone shook with quite a few bounces on Lapland’s windshield. In a tight battle for victory Ott Tänak too and Kalle Rovanperän with Lapland experienced quite a setback. A stone bouncing back from the side of the bench directly into the windshield of Lapland’s Toyota and even directly into the field of vision of the Finnish driver was quite unlikely.
Mikko Hirvonen has seen a lot in the rally world. In his time, he drove 163 World Cup rallies and took 15 race victories. Hirvonen was also second in the World Championship four times, but Lapland’s fate made him wonder too.
– Quite a few rallies and years can go on without seeing something like that. Unbelievably bad luck, Hirvonen said in ‘s rally studio.
The crack in the windshield is quite low and to the left.
– That lower edge is important for the field of vision. The drivers have said that the engineers force them to sit as low as possible, Henri Haapamäki continued.
– It probably disturbs more in curves turning to the right, Hirvonen continued.
Esapekka Lappi was very disappointed at the finish of the special test.
– There was no luck, when braking at the intersection, the front lip shot a stone forward, the stone hit the windshield directly. I can’t see how to drive right now, but let’s go with these, Lappi said.
Moments later, caught up with Lapi from the transition stage to the next special exam.
– This has never happened in a race before, and not directly in the field of vision. Sometimes there have been tests, but not this violently. Time is fragmented just in front of the field of vision, Lappi stated.
Lappi believed that the rest of the day would be a battle for survival.
– That seems to be the case. Nothing can be done, Lappi decided.
shows all Jyväskylä World Championship special tests live in Areena and the application. You can find everything about the World Rally Championship in Jyväskylä at EPN.fi/mmralli. You can access the popular rally live tracking here.
SITUATION AFTER EK 15/22
1. Ott Tänak (Hyundai) 1.36.41.9
2. Esapekka Lappi (Toyota) + 11.2
3. Kalle Rovanperä (Toyota) + 12.7
4.. Elfyn Evans (Toyota) + 23.0
5. Thierry Neuville (Hyundai) + 1.42,2
6. Takamoto Katsuta (Toyota) + 1.46.5
7. Pierre-Louis Loubet (Ford) + 2.35,0
8. Gus Greensmith (Ford) + 2.42,9
9. Teemu Suninen (Hyundai) + 6.12.5
10. Emil Lindholm (Skoda) + 6.18,8
11. Sami Pajari (Skoda) + 6.55,1
12. Egon Kaur (Volkswagen) + 7.29,7