Kalle Rovanperä has a big weekend ahead of him.
The penultimate race of the World Rally Championship season, the Central European World Rally Championship, starts on Thursday. In the new year of the World Series, asphalt sections are run in three different countries: the Czech Republic, Germany and Austria.
There will certainly be an interesting competition, but in terms of Finns, all attention is focused Kalle Rovaperää. If Elfyn Evans unable to reach Rovanperä in points, the Finn takes the championship.
Rovanperä has the first starting place on Friday, where he can get a little help. Dirt and mud can come up from the corners cuts for the cars coming behind.
– Let’s hope that Friday morning will be wet. Then the starting point would be useful. In the afternoon, we come back to the same shit. Let’s hope that on Friday we could take some advantage of time, Rovanperä said on the eve of the race.
The story continues after the picture.
Kalle Rovanperä is chasing the world championship. Vesa Pöppönen / AOP
Rovanperä is confident that the nature of the novelty competition is suitable for him. In advance, the most challenging sections will be driven in the Czech Republic, where Rovanpera has previous experience from his Skoda years.
Rovanperä doesn’t have to drive at the limits of risks, because even a reasonable points pot would take him one step closer to the title.
– Of course, I’m interested in participating in the fight for victory, because we have a good starting point for the asphalt rally. Once this way. But of course we are completely against Elfyn, Rovanperä stressed.
– The situation in itself is better than, for example, a forced win. We’re going to ride according to what Elfyn does. It is enough if we are getting more points than him. It doesn’t matter what other people do.
Teammates
Elfyn Evans has been riding as Rovanperä’s teammate for a long time. Vesa Pöppönen / AOP
Rovanperä and Evans have been team mates at Toyota since 2020.
Now the two are fighting for the world championship against each other for the first time.
– We have never been terribly close, but the relationship has always been good. Elfyn is pretty much the same type as me. He is calm and enjoys himself a lot. We get along well if we talk about something, Rovanperä described.
Finnish rally fans are already eagerly waiting for Rovanperä to celebrate the World Championship title. The Toyota star sent his greetings to his supporters.
– Let’s hope that we don’t have to wait much longer. Let’s hope that’s where it comes from this year.