The World Rally Championship will be contested for the first time this week in Latvia. Rovanperä has fond memories of Latvia.
The first ever Latvian World Cup Rally starts on Thursday. It is an interesting rally from a Finn’s point of view because Kalle Rovanperä drove there when he was younger before his World Rally Championship career.
Eight years ago, he won the general category championship of the Latvian rally series at the age of 15. The very next year, the Finnish talent drove his first World Cup rally in the WRC2 class.
The 23-year-old Toyota driver won the previous World Cup rally in Poland. Sports expert Henri Haapamäki believes that Rovanperä has a small advantage for the new gravel rally due to his experience.
– After all, it’s a clear thing that once you’ve seen the local conditions, it’s useful, even if you don’t drive on the same roads. Kalle has always been phenomenal on very fast sections. Already in the early stages of his career, in the Mikkeli SM rally, separations came quickly.
– The same has continued today. This rally is giving that advantage combined with a good starting position. There has to be quite a lot of support from others so that they can challenge Rovanperä.
Risks
The Latvian rally is therefore really fast in nature and style, which suits Rovanpera perfectly. However, Haapamäki reminds that Latvian-type rallies involve their own risks with modern cars.
– The basic idea of the rally is to drive very hard in this rally, because there are really fast gravel roads available in Latvia. The rally is sure to please both spectators and competitors, because modern cars enable absolutely unimaginable speed.
– However, a person is between the car and the bench. When in these rallies like Finland, Estonia, Poland and Latvia the average speeds start to exceed 140 kilometers per hour and we go almost two hundred long distances between the trees, the moment of danger rears its head.
What is Lapland capable of?
Haapamäki makes Estonia Rovanperä’s toughest challenger Ott Tänak toowhich has usually been successful in gravel rallies like Latvia.
He also brings up the topic of discussion Esapekka Lapin the name. Lappi, who drives a Hyundai, has driven in the World Cup Rally for the last time more than three months ago in the Safari Rally, so there are small question marks. At the beginning of the year in the Swedish rally, he celebrated as the competition winner.
– Surely this rally suits him very well. He must also be put on the podium in advance. This is a rally more familiar to Esapeka than anything else For Thierry Neuville and For Elfyn Evans.
– It will certainly take a while, because more than three months of break are behind us. That is significant in a rally series like this.