The World Rally Championship in Portugal, which starts on Thursday, separates the grains from the chaff, writes rally journalist Toni Heinonen.
Can Kalle Rovanperä’s and partners’ hybrid mills last? ZUMAwire / MVphotos
Portugal runs the first gravel race of the World Rally Championship season. The season is just beginning, but the stakes are already high.
There are three races behind and ten more trials ahead. The series is in its infancy, but the rally in northern Portugal provides a strong example of team strength.
As many as seven of the remaining races will be run on gravel roads. And Portugal is the first of these rallies to put this generation of Rally1 hybrid cars to the tough test.
Portugal offers the stables a real yardstick for the rest of the season. The gravel sections around Porto have both technical and drastic sections and more dynamic sections. The rallies in Sardinia and Kenya after Portugal are endurance races in nature, while the races in Estonia and Finland after them are about raw speed on gravel roads.
The World Rally Championship in Portugal is also a new test for the hybrid units that came in the section cars this season. On the very first day of the race on Friday, the hybrid cars will have to pass eight special stages and the crashes of 120 ek-kilometers without proper maintenance.
On Saturday, the job isn’t much easier. There is a decent maintenance break during the day, but there are two 80-kilometer loops that can be folded by the municipalities.
Hybrid units showed signs of weakness in the Swedish snow rally at the end of February. Hyundai’s Ott Tänak and Toyota’s Elfyn Evans – both champion favorites – had to be suspended due to faults in the units.
In the previous race on Croatian asphalt bananas, the hybrid units did not have the same symptoms. Still, there is a question to be raised before the Portuguese rally: will the teams be able to avoid problems next weekend or will there be more nasty hybrid surprises ahead?
Weather conditions must also be taken into account. Now we are competing with hybrid menus for the first time in the summer, as heat has been promised for the weekend.
Kalle Rovanperä, who will start in the Portuguese race as the leader of the World Championship series, will have a tough job as an aura car in Friday’s special stages. But if Toyota’s Finnish star avoids extra problems, the result can be surprisingly good.
It is known that extreme speed can be found in Rovanpera, but now moderation must also be found.