Toyota’s Kalle Rovanperä retained second place in the special stage of the World Rally Championship in Portugal on Saturday morning.
Kalle Rovanperä chases Elfyn Evans in Portugal. AOP
Kalle Rovanperä challenged his teammate leading the rally Elfyn Evansin strictly and logged another morning in a stretch of hard bottom time.
However, the Welsh driver struck back in the next special stage, where he left Rovanpera for 8.2 seconds. In the overall situation, Evans has a lead of 18.4 seconds.
– The morning loop went just fine. We had a pair of soft tires from yesterday. They gave little smoothing when the tires used didn’t work so well. Then on the last long stretch, Elfyn made a better tire choice and put the hard tires underneath. We ran out of tires again, Rovanperä summed up for Iltalehti.
Rovanperä, who is by far the leader of the World Cup series, does not make sense to fight for victory with his teeth. Second place scores would further consolidate the lead in the World Cup table.
– Of course you have to drive smart. There are big differences behind and you would get good scores instead. However, we try to keep good pressure on Evans and then see how it goes, Rovanperä said.
– An interesting afternoon is promised when there are not enough soft tires left. Let’s see what happens there.
The WRC2 class will be led by the driver of the first World Rally Championship of the season after 12 special stages Teemu Suninen. French Yohan Rossel crawled on a Saturday morning snippet less than ten seconds away from the Finn.
– The morning snippets were a bit disappointing for myself. Sure, we’re still in the lead, but the lead shrank and almost halved. The choice of tire was quite a compromise because we had to leave the route with six used tires, Suninen said.
– In the future, the situation with regard to tires should be more even. Hopefully the driving will also get a little better.
It has been Suninen’s mind to return to the World Cup. Suninen, who is longing to return to the WRC team for the opening rally of the season, will only win.
– Yes, everything has to be put into play here. We will do everything we can to make a profit. The feeling has been great. This has been missed, and this is the thing I like.