Kalle Rovanperä’s championship season started with a cough to say the least.
Kalle Rovanperä already secured his world championship in the New Zealand rally last weekend. PDO
Toyota’s Finnish star Kalle Rovanperän the season in the World Rally Championship has been fairytale-like.
Six race wins and seven first places in the Power Stage special test secured the first World Championship title of Rovanperä’s career already in New Zealand last weekend. Especially on the Power Stage sections, Rovanperä has been deafening, taking 47 of the 55 points in the division.
However, the season did not start with roses. After Thursday’s evening specials of January’s Monte Carlo World Rally, Rovanperä was in 12th place in the general competition, more than a minute away from the top. After Friday, the situation didn’t look much better, when the ranking was ninth and the difference to the top was two minutes and 12 seconds.
However, something happened during Friday’s evening maintenance, and Rovanperä found better settings for the new GR Yaris Rally1 hybrid car. On Saturday, Rovanperä was the second fastest of the whole group, rising to fourth place, which the youngster also held until the end.
After securing the championship in New Zealand, Rovanperä admitted that after the painful start of the Monte Carlo rally, there were even Rally2 cars ahead.
– I really wasn’t thinking about the championship at that point, when we were in big trouble in Monte Carlo, Rovanperä said.
– More than that, I thought that if the year is going to be this bad, then what else could I do in my life, because apparently I’m not that good at rallying. Fortunately, the year wasn’t so bad.
The map reader also had the same thoughts Jonne Halttusen.
– We were in a bit of trouble in Monte, or that’s an understatement. We had big problems at first. We discussed that we should think about some other work.
In the Swedish World Rally in February, Rovanperä already drove to victory and after that he dominated the World Series. The first thoughts about a possible championship started creeping into the back of my mind in the summer.
– Of course, I started the year with that idea, or at least hoping that with new cars we can be in the championship fight. However, I didn’t think we would be as strong as we were, Rovanperä said.
– Maybe halfway through the year, it started to feel like the championship could come when we were leading the series. At that time, I thought it was clear that it could be done.
There are still two races left in the World Rally Championship. The next time we will compete for points in Catalonia in a couple of weeks. The season ends in November with Toyota’s home rally in Japan.