Kalle Rovanperä is the biggest favorite to win in the Estonian World Rally Championship starting on Thursday evening.
Kalle Rovanperä is chasing his next victory in Estonia. EPA / AOP
Kalle Rovanperän shares rose further after Thursday morning’s test special, when M-Sport Ford’s To Ott Tänak a five-minute time penalty for a fast gravel race was messed up due to an engine change. Tänak was considered in advance as Rovanperä’s biggest threat in Estonia, where Toyota’s Finnish ace has reached victory in the previous two summers.
Rovanperä likes the nature of the Estonian World Rally Championship even more than the race in Jyväskylä in his home region.
– Of course, I’m going into the race with good feelings, because this is my favorite rally. Challenging competition overall, Rovanperä said.
Rovanperä got his only win of the season so far in Portugal two months ago. Now the situation is a little different, because last season the Finnish ace had no less than four World Championship victories under his belt before the Rally of Estonia.
In so far as the situation is similar, however, Rovanperä has a noticeable lead in the World Series this time as well. And this weekend he wants to achieve the Estonian hat-trick in Tartu.
– Let’s hope that the rains will help us on Friday. Tomorrow seems to be the longest and loosest sections again, as always in these gravel rallies. But there’s no help but to plow them, Rovanperä planned.
Rovanperä prepared for the Estonian competition by testing Toyota equipment two weeks ago in the southern part of the Gulf of Finland. The test didn’t go as well as possible, but despite this, Rovanperä took the first time on Thursday morning’s special test.
– Our test track was actually quite bad for this race. The road was soft because there had been heavy rain in the area just before the test. Now we had to screw up the car a bit on the test track. But the pace seemed to be okay, Rovanperä talked.
Will the career continue at Toyota?
Rovanperä’s current contract with the Toyota WRC team expires at the end of this year. Acting as Rovanperä’s manager Timo Jouhki has already held discussions with Toyota about the continuation, and in addition to this, inquiries have also been made in the direction of Hyundai.
Rovanperä was still silent about his future on Thursday.
Kalle Rovanperä, when will we hear more about your future?
– I do not know.
It’s your decision right?
– It’s my decision, but I don’t know when anyone will hear anything about it.
Does it make sense to change teams if you think about what happened to Ott Tänak after he left Toyota?
– I guess that doesn’t sound terribly reasonable.
So it is more likely that you will keep this same car?
– No one will ever say that, said Rovanperä’s final song.
Finally, as a clarification, Tänak left the Toyota WRC team at the end of his 2019 championship season. With Hyundai, Tänak reached second place in the final points of the World Championship last year, when Rovanperä clinched his first World Championship title. For this year, Tänak switched to the M-Sport Ford team.
The opening special stage of the Estonian World Rally Championship will be run on Thursday evening in Tartu.