Kalle Rovanpera says a puncture at Rally Saudi Arabia doesn’t really change anything for his World Rally Championship title bid.
The Toyota driver’s chances of securing a third world title were slim heading into the weekend’s season finale as he sits 24 points behind championship leader and team-mate Elfyn Evans, who in turn leads Sebastien Ogier by three points.
Rovanpera’s title hopes suffered a blow on Thursday morning when he picked up a left-rear puncture in stage four [Khulays 1, 11.33km]. The deflation cost the Finn 49.6s, dropping the two-time world champion from eighth to 10th position, behind Ogier and Evans.
Rovanpera was at a loss to explain the puncture after revealing that he didn’t hit any rocks: “It is like most of the punctures this year, it has just come from somewhere. I don’t know what the reason is for that to be honest.
“I seem to have so many more punctures this year and this one was the same, you don’t feel anything and then suddenly you have a puncture.
“It doesn’t really change anything [for me]. We just hope to have a better afternoon. It will be super tough and already in the first two stages I was having to avoid a lot of stones, and there were two cars in front of me, so we will see how bad it will be.”
Elfyn Evans, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT
Photo by: Toyota Racing
Evans kicking himself after clumsy error
Championship leader Evans avoided major delays, but it proved to be a difficult morning for the Welshman, who ended the morning loop in eighth, 22.7s behind his nearest title rival Ogier holding seventh. The pair both struggled with the road cleaning effect on the dusty and rocky gravel surface.
Evans admitted he was too conservative in the day’s opening sandy Dakar Rally-style stage, ceding 12.8s to Ogier. A mistake at a junction on stage four also proved costly.
“I was far too conservative on that first one stage really, and that was the biggest mistake let’s say,” said Evans. “The second stage was reasonably ok and with the cleaning that was there, I expected to lose more to Seb in a way. The last one the pace was not too bad compared to Seb but the mistake I made I was kicking myself over, as it was a bit of a clumsy error, so not ideal.”
Evans, however, expects the afternoon pass through the stages to offer up a tougher challenge with more rocks set to emerge on the roads.
“I suspect there will be rocks coming up from the ground and we saw in shakedown how quickly the roads were evolving, so let’s see,” he added.
Ogier was relatively pleased with his morning loop considering the conditions, but is also concerned about the conditions crews will face this afternoon. The Frenchman is adamant that Rovanpera will not be the last driver to suffer a puncture this weekend.
Sebastien Ogier, Vincent Landais, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT
Photo by: Toyota Racing
“At the end of the day we are in a fight with Elfyn and Kalle here and not really for the overall, so we focus on that, and so far we are on target,” said Ogier. “Kalle will not be the last puncture of the weekend, so we all know that. We will do our best to stay out of trouble.
“There will be more rocks than this morning. With the soft ground you don’t really know where to expect them, so that is the difficulty for sure. In this kind of event, you always have a sense of caution for sure you cannot go fully on it. It might work for a little while but most probably not for long.”
Sesks surprised to lead the rally
Outside of the title race, the surprise of the morning was Martins Sesks, who claimed two of the three stages to lead the rally by 1.3s from Hyundai’s Adrien Fourmaux. Sesks could have claimed a clean sweep of stage wins had he not misjudged the same junction that caught out Evans in stage four.
Sesks’ surge to the lead of a WRC event for the first time in his career was made even more impressive given he has been out of the M-Sport Ford Puma since Finland in August.
“I felt it was okay, and I understood the road cleaning [effect] and everything, but I didn’t expect that [result] as I still made mistakes and everything,” said Sesks.
“All three stages were very different but now the biggest thing is to watch out for the road conditions. Of course, when you see a bit ahead you can brake or go around the rocks but there are many places where you cannot do anything.”
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– The Autosport.com Team
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