Kalle Rovanperä lamented when the fight with Ott Tänak was canceled even before the start: “It’s a tough punishment”

Kalle Rovanperä regretted that the battle with Ott Tänak in the World Rally Championship in Estonia ended before even the first special test. Toyota has made updates to its engine with Hyundai in mind.

The Estonian World Championship Rally starts on Thursday evening at 20:05 with the first special stage. Driving M-Sport’s Ford Ott Tänak headed to his home rally with great expectations.

Tänak won the Swedish rally at the beginning of the year, but has not reached the podium since then. The stable had invested very hard in the fast gravel rallies in Estonia and Jyväskylä.

On Thursday morning, Tänak clocked the fastest time in the opening race of the special test, but the car had engine problems, which prevented him from driving. The team had to replace Tänak’s car with a new engine, which meant a five-minute time penalty according to the rules.

The problems were guessed

Rally site According to Dirtfish Even today, the car’s engine had problems even before the special test.

– It seemed like a fresh engine. Apparently, at the first start yesterday, it started to feel like the mechanics weren’t really sure about the engine. I was told this morning that there may be trouble coming.

M-Sport team manager Richard Miller said that the issues had been discussed with the mechanics. However, no one knew exactly what it was about. So Tänak was put on a special test in the morning, hoping that everything would go well. Millener did not elaborate on what the concerns were.

– All previous inspections were thorough. Everything went through and everything was still working at home in England, so we were very surprised to see the problem so early in the rally, Millener wondered according to Autosport.

For Tänak, the loss of the victory in the home rally is hugely frustrating. In addition, he regretted that all the hard advance work went down the drain. The Estonian, who is fourth in the World Series, regretted the overall situation even more.

– I would say that it is not really about the Estonian rally, but more about the World Championship in general. A rally is a rally anyway, so it doesn’t matter where you are. The results of a championship series like this are critical everywhere.

Tänak stated that, for example, in the Safari Rally you could still try to make a result from five minutes back, but not in the fast Estonian Rally.

– Even today, because of the fans, this is probably the worst rally where this kind of thing can happen, so we can only apologize to them, team manager Millener said.

Rovanperä is upset

Tänak won the Estonian Rally in the 2020 season. In the last two seasons, the victory has been taken by Rovanperä, who is also now clearly leading the World Championship.

Rovanperä said that he was upset for his Estonian rival.

– Surely there would have been a good fight with Otti and it’s a shame when he got such a punishment at the start, Rovanperä sorry for Autosport.

– What can you say? Rules are rules and there have been other drivers who have had the same penalty. I’d say that’s a tough punishment.

Autosport asked Rovanpera if the punishment is too harsh.

– There could be a punishment that would not be so severe.

Toyota, on the other hand, has introduced new updates to its engine for the World Rally Championship in Estonia. The reason is that Hyundai has been faster on particularly high-speed routes.

Last year, Tänak, who was still driving a Hyundai, beat Rovanperä, for example, in the Jyväskylä World Rally Championship. Toyota has felt that the team should be able to help Rovanperä even more in pure engine performance.

– I think if you look at it in general, Hyundai has been very strong with its engine. I don’t think we are more efficient than others, but hopefully we are now at the same level as Hyundai, the Toyota boss Jari-Matti Latvala said.

Urheilu follows the Estonian World Rally Championship in this article.