How a future WRC star and bizarre moments overshadowed Rovanpera's latest drubbing

When Sebastien Ogier says a driver was “untouchable”, it’s a statement that carries serious weight. That is exactly how the eight-time world champion described Toyota team-mate Kalle Rovanpera in Latvia, as the Finn romped to victory on the World Rally Championship's maiden visit to the country.

The odds were seemingly short on a Rovanpera victory in Latvia. The Baltic nation's gravel roads are where the now two-time world champion cut his teeth; a 12-year-old fresh-faced Kalle made his rally debut here driving a Citroen C2 R2. He even calls Latvia a third home behind Finland and Estonia. So, it was perhaps no surprise that Rovanpera claimed his 14th WRC win to match fellow two-time champion Walter Rohrl and surpass the milestone of 200 stage wins in an astonishing 50 top-flight starts.

Last month you could see on the faces of Rovanpera and co-driver Jonne Halttunen that victory in Poland as last-minute replacements for the injured Ogier and Vincent Landais was tough. Last weekend they seemed to make winning again look straightforward, but that’s not how Rovanpera saw it.

“It was not so easy,” he said. “On Friday and on Sunday the roads and the grip were quite tricky, but overall the weekend went well and we didn’t need to do anything crazy in the car. We just enjoyed our own driving.

“It’s quite special; we spent many years in the beginning of my career here and I have good memories and friends here, so it was cool to see them. To get the first WRC Latvia rally win is a nice one for us.”

While it was a homecoming of sorts for Rovanpera, his stunning performance was somewhat overshadowed by Latvia’s bona fide home hero Martins Sesks. Competing in only his second Rally1 start and first with a hybrid-powered M-Sport Ford Puma, as part of a two-round deal supported by the WRC Promoter, the 24-year-old Latvian was a sensation that lit up the event.

Although he missed out on a podium finish at the end of the event, Sesks demonstrated that he's a star in waiting

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Sesks had already offered a glimpse at his burgeoning star quality in Poland, where he finished fifth with the handicap of running without the boost of the extra 130bhp from the hybrid unit. A two-time winner of the rally in its European Rally Championship guise, the local with his knowledge of the stages and advantageous road position was poised to be a threat. Delivering on that potential was not a given, but Sesks did so with aplomb.

At the start of the rally, Sesks emerged as Rovanpera’s nearest rival, which whipped up the local crowd into a frenzy. This was perhaps best depicted by the thousands that crammed into Latvia’s only permanent race track, Bikernieki in Riga, for Thursday night’s opening stage.

Rovanpera capitalised on a smart decision to run soft tyres to win the stage by 2.4 seconds from Ogier and championship leader Thierry Neuville, who was fortunate to survive an excursion into a ditch in shakedown. Sesks was only 0.5s further back, while those that ran hard tyres – including Hyundai’s Ott Tanak, who was expected to perform in Latvia – found the going tough.

"He's been driving really well. I have to say I was expecting it after a Poland, where he showed us what he can do without hybrid"
Kalle Rovanpera on Martins Sesks

Friday was the Rovanpera and Sesks show, although it was the latter who generated more headlines. This was always going to be a rally dictated by road position, given it was new for the majority of crews and the fact that across Friday and Saturday only three of 15 stages were repeated. There was little respite for the likes of title contenders Neuville, Elfyn Evans and Tanak at the top of the order.

WRC part-timer Rovanpera, starting sixth on the road, won four of the seven stages to march into a 15.7s lead, helped by an inspired call to take two hard tyres for the afternoon. Rovanpera’s lead was over Sesks, who incredibly held off the now fully fit Ogier following his Poland recce accident. Not only did Sesks keep an eight-time world champion at bay, he claimed a maiden WRC career stage win in the Tukums test. Another fastest time followed in the Andumi stage.

“It’s amazing,” said a stunned Sesks. “To drive in the same times as world champions; I have nothing to say.”

His performance even warranted a meeting with the Latvian president Edgars Rinkevics. But Sesks’s pace wasn’t a surprise for Rovanpera: “He's been driving really well. I have to say I was expecting it after Poland, where he showed us what he can do without hybrid.”

Sesks was cheered on by the passionate Latvian fans to record his first stage wins on Friday, outpacing Ogier as he did so

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Ogier, perhaps not best known for his pace on high-speed gravel rallies, ended Friday 21.6s adrift in third, having been fourth on the road. “We've seen a day where the road position was affecting massively the performance,” he said. “I think we can be satisfied with ours.”

Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta showed signs that his pace had returned to sit fourth, ahead of M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux, while Tanak struggled for confidence and with a brake issue to hold sixth. Evans, among those to face the worst of the road conditions, was seventh in front of M-Sport’s Gregoire Munster, while the frustration of opening the roads sparked an outburst from Neuville.

The championship leader was handed ninth to secure a slightly better road position for Saturday after Hyundai told an out-of-sorts Esapekka Lappi, fighting for grip and speed, to slow down on the day’s final stage. But the damage had already been done, a full 1m23.3s lost to leader Rovanpera.

“Obviously, the strategy to win the championship is not the same anymore,” said Neuville at the stage end. “Now things like doing a part season are much more fun and a bigger benefit for everything, so it is something to think about.”

Neuville backed up those comments as a debate about road position erupted in the service park: “Why I should have the pain in the ass all weekend, all year long? We did a great job in the beginning of the year, and now there's no reward at all. We could have, whoever it is, Ott, Elfyn or myself, the winner of the championship at the end of the year winning maybe one rally.”

But there was little sympathy from Rovanpera, who has had to open the roads for the majority of the last two seasons.

“It's the same for years,” he said. “It's not now more difficult than it has been in previous years. That's just how it is, you need to take it. Otherwise, if you don't want to do it, don't lead the championship.”

Ogier was a tad more sympathetic, having previously fought to change the rules over road position. Like team-mate Rovanpera, the Frenchman is now competing in a partial schedule of events.

Road sweeper Neuville lost too much time on the opening day to be a factor in the remainder of the event, and railed against road order rules favouring part-timers

Photo by: Fabien Dufour / Hyundai Motorsport

“It's funny that a couple of years ago [Neuville] was often saying that I should stop crying about it, but now he's crying more than anybody about it,” Ogier said. “It's not fun and it's not great. I think the shame is that we are missing opportunities too often in the WRC to have fights between the best, because too often there is big differences between start positions.”

While the debate raged on, Rovanpera again delivered one of his stunning Saturday displays, as six stage wins from eight tests provided the platform for a comfortable victory. His meteoric rise was again outlined by securing a 200th stage win, a feat which averages as four stage wins for every rally contested at the top level. It’s a rate on par with Ogier, 17 years his senior, who has amassed 719 stage wins during his career.

In the fight for the podium places, Ogier did manage to edge clear of Sesks. This put Toyota into a 1-2 and completed half of the objective set out by the Japanese manufacturer for Rovanpera and Ogier, as they secured 18 and 15 Saturday points respectively. But the biggest headline of the day was reserved for one of the most bizarre incidents in recent WRC history.

Tanak declared his rally as one “that was not good, but entertaining” as he closed to within eight points of team-mate Neuville in the title race

A wild slide wide at a right-hander for Evans in stage 14 (Vecpils) resulted in his GR Yaris clipping an inflatable promotional arch while returning to the road. The contact deflated the structure, leaving it strewn across the road. Officials attempted to remove it but failed, while rally control were unable to red flag the stage before a resurgent Tanak, who had climbed to fourth, collected the arch at speed.

The stage was then red-flagged while Tanak and co-driver Martin Jarveoja removed the arch which had become entangled in his i20 N. They were awarded a nominal time along with Fourmaux and Katsuta, who had dropped from fourth to seventh after overshooting a chicane in stage 12 damaged his power steering.

A frustrated Tanak launched a tirade at rally control when speaking to television crews at the stage end: “I think this exactly describes how we are in safe hands in terms of race control. Probably they were having a nice meal and good wine when on the cameras you could see the road is blocked and there is a car coming. Well done race control, you are really taking care of us.”

The 2019 world champion later apologised for his comments, while the FIA launched a thorough review of the incident that it agreed could have been “potentially dangerous”. “Hyundai Motorsport, the organiser and the FIA are collaborating to better understand the incident and to work together towards the continuous improvement of the safety systems in the sport, which is a critical goal of the FIA,” read part of a joint statement.

Tanak didn't mince his words after his Hyundai was tangled up in an archway clipped by Evans

Photo by: Romain Thuillier / Hyundai Motorsport

Tanak’s eventful Saturday continued as a driveshaft failure on the final stage sent him into a haybale on the host city Liepaja's street stage. Luckily he hung on to fourth (10 points), 20.8s behind Sesks, but crucially outscored title rivals Evans in sixth (six points) and Neuville in eighth (three points).

Tanak’s championship hopes were boosted by another remarkable performance to claim the maximum 12 points on offer for topping the Sunday standings and winning the Power Stage. The Estonian also snatched third overall as Sesks’s dream of stunning podium on home soil unravelled. Entering the final stage with a 4.6s margin over Tanak, a differential problem on his Puma left him to crawl through the final 13.3km (8.3 miles) to finish seventh.

“We did a good job,” said Sesks. “This is a thing in racing sometimes, you have technical issues. Of course it is [a] shame it happened before these final 13 kilometres, but it is how it is.”

While gutted to miss the podium, Sesks and co-driver Renars Francis clambered to the roof of their car to take in the rapturous response from the home crowd. Tanak led the plaudits from the drivers hailing the “incredible job” Sesks had shown with his driving.

Tanak declared his rally as one “that was not good, but entertaining” as he closed to within eight points of team-mate Neuville in the title race, while Evans’s haul of 11 points dropped him to third. There was no such drama for Rovanpera, who sealed the victory by 39.2s from Ogier.

The result completed Toyota’s objective, as the brand cut the gap to Hyundai in the manufacturers’ standings to one point. While Latvia further outlined the quality of Rovanpera and the rise of a future star in Sesks, just 13 points separate the top three in championship with five rounds still to go.

Victory for Rovanpera and co-driver Halttunen was their third from five rallies in 2024

Photo by: Toyota Racing