Toyota’s Kalle Rovanpera took victory in the Rally Chile on Sunday, mastering dense fog and treacherous conditions (above) to take his fourth win of the 2024 FIA World Rally Championship season.
At the wheel of a Toyota GR Yaris Rally1, the two-time and reigning WRC champion beat his Toyota Gazoo Racing teammate Elfyn Evans by 23.4 seconds, mastering the increasingly difficult and damp gravel roads in Chile’s Bio Bio region.
Rovanpera started the eleventh round of the season cautiously, admitting that the Chilean gravel of Friday’s opening race did not suit his driving style. But as the rally progressed, he found his rhythm. The turning point came on Saturday afternoon when he overtook Evans in near-zero visibility, navigating dense fog high up the mountain stages and taking a 15.1-second lead heading into the short final stage.
The 23-year-old Finn, who will only take on a part-time campaign in 2024 to recharge his rally batteries, remained unflappable in equally difficult conditions on Sunday, beating Evans on all but one of the final four stages to secure a 15th victory set. of his WRC career.
“It feels really good,” Rovanpera said. “Big thanks to the team; the car and everything worked perfectly. The win actually feels like a good win, but Friday didn’t feel so good and the conditions were very difficult all weekend, so yeah, it feels really good.”
Kalle Rovanpera has only started seven 2024 WRC rounds for Toyota, but he and co-driver Jonne Halttunen have now won four with their first victory coming in the Rally Chile. Toyota GAZOO Racing WRT
Hyundai Motorsport’s Ott Tanak completed the podium 20.5 seconds behind Evans in his i20 N Rally1. Despite the Estonian’s podium, Hyundai lost ground in the WRC Manufacturers’ Championship, with Toyota closing the gap to just 17 points, thanks to masterful performances from Rovanpera and Evans and Sebastien Ogier’s third factory entry’s crucial maximum points tally on Super Sunday.
Championship leader Thierry Neuville had a relatively drama-free ride to fourth place in his factory i20 N Rally1, a result that brings him even closer to a first drivers’ title as he sits at the top of the table with 29 points with just two rounds to go. Neuville, a five-time runner-up in the WRC standings, can afford to lose a handful of points to both Evans and Ogier at next month’s Central European Rally and still take the title, provided he scores better than teammate Tanak .
Fourth place in Chile for Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville is a potential title contender at next month’s Central European Rally. Jaanus Ree/Red Bull Content Pool
While Ogier managed to salvage every point from Super Sunday, his hopes of a ninth WRC title now look slim. The Frenchman, who had the speed to challenge for the win, retired his Toyota on Saturday with suspension damage after hitting a rock and returned on Sunday purely to mount an attack and win the points on offer to fetch.
Adrien Fourmaux was M-Sport Ford’s top finisher in fifth place, 1:1.6 seconds behind Neuville. The Frenchman’s result could have been even stronger were it not for his one-minute penalty for a late check-in in his Puma Rally1 on Friday.
Toyota’s rising star Sami Pajari impressed by finishing sixth on his second Rally1 outing, while Fourmaux’s M-Sport Ford teammate Gregoire Munster followed in seventh.
Esapekka Lappi was on course to finish eighth, but was forced to retire on the penultimate stage after a spin damaged the radiator of his Hyundai. The retirement also marked the end of the impressive WRC career of Lappi’s co-driver Janne Ferm after 90 starts, two wins and 15 podiums.
In WRC2, the second level of international rallying, Yohan Rossel and Nikolay Gryazin DG Sport Competition’s 1-2 finish secured the 2024 WRC2 team title.
Only 17.3 seconds separated the Citroen C3 Rally2 pair. Frenchman Rossel was given a late lead on Saturday evening when the stewards awarded him a corrected time for Saturday’s penultimate stage, where he was held up behind WRC2 points leader Oliver Solberg, and he started Sunday’s final stage with a lead of 21, 6 seconds.
However, Rossel’s buffer was steadily eroded as Gryazin approached Sunday’s four stages. A 10-second time penalty for a jump start only increased the tension, but Rossel kept his composure through the dense fog and treacherously muddy roads to claim victory. His victory keeps his WRC2 driver title hopes alive.
Solberg, who had led earlier in the rally before undergoing a costly wheel change on Saturday, could only finish fourth in his class. The Toksport Skoda Fabia RS driver has now completed the maximum seven allowed events in WRC2, and although he currently leads the standings, the Swede will have to wait anxiously for the final two rounds to see if Rossel or Sami Pajari, will be back in his WRC2 Yaris can save him for the title next time.
Citroen C3 driver Yohan Rossel’s WRC2 victory keeps his championship hopes alive in the second category of the WRC. McKlein/Motorsport Images
The WRC returns to Europe for its penultimate round, the Central European Rally, from October 17 to 20. Based in the southeast German town of Bad Griessbach, the event takes the teams on a journey that crosses multiple borders on fully paved stages in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic.
WRC Rally Chile, finishing positions after stage three, SS16
1 Kalle Rovanpera/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) 2h58m59.8s
2 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +23.4s
3 Ott Tanak/Martin Jarveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +43.9s
4 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1) +1m01.1s
5 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria Ford Puma Rally1) +2m02.7s
6 Sami Pajari/Enni Malkonen (Toyota GR Yaris Rally1) +2m39.7s
7 Gregoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1) +2m47.7s
8 Yohan Rossel/Florian Barral Citroen C3 – WRC2 winner) +8m31.4s
9 Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Citroën C3 – WRC2) +8m48.7s
10 Gus Greensmith/Jonas Andersson (Skoda Fabia RS – WRC2) +8m52.1s
WRC Drivers’ Championship after 11 of 13 rounds
1 Neuville 207 points
2 Tanak 178
3 Ogier 166
4 Evans 161
5 Fourmaux 140
WRC Manufacturers’ Championship after 11 of 13 rounds
1 Hyundai Motorsport 482 points
2 Toyota Gazoo Racing 465
3 M-Sport Ford 245
Check out WRC.com, the official home of the FIA World Rally Championship. And for the ultimate WRC experience, sign up for a Rally.TV subscription to watch all the stages of every rally live and on demand, anywhere, anytime.
The story originally appeared on Racer
Leave a Comment