How Lappi survived Swedish snow carnage to snap his lengthy WRC drought

Six years, six months and 19 days is a long time in motorsport. For Esapekka Lappi, it would have felt like an eternity since he last stood on the top step of a top-flight World Rally Championship podium. Doubts he would never win again had begun to creep into his mind, but in Sweden they were extinguished.

In the time since a fresh-faced Finn burst onto the WRC scene to claim a maiden victory at Rally Finland in 2017, Lappi has contested 60 rallies driving for Toyota, Citroen, M-Sport and Hyundai. There have been several opportunities to add to his win tally, but it took an attritional Rally Sweden for the stars to align for one of the service park’s true characters.

“It feels bloody good, I don’t know how to explain it,” said an emotional Lappi as he and co-driver Janne Ferm stood on the podium. “At the end of last year for sure I felt it [a win] would not come anymore as I didn’t even know if we were driving, so for sure I was not really believing it anymore. But maybe that is the trick.”

Tricks were indeed required to conquer Sweden’s fast yet unforgiving snowbank-lined roads. This was a proper Rally Sweden as heavy snow showers created a challenge not witnessed for many years.

It was billed as reigning world champion Kalle Rovanpera’s comeback as the Finn embarked on the first of his scaled down part-time season for Toyota. The 2022 Rally Sweden winner was the overwhelming favourite given his skills on snow and a favourable starting position after sitting out last month’s Monte Carlo Rally.

The event also marked Lappi’s first round of 2024 after electing for a partial season this year at Hyundai. When Autosport suggested to Lappi that he and Rovanpera would be the favourites given their road position, he wasn’t convinced.

“It could be Kalle and then the rest of us,” he said. “That is probably more obvious than me fighting with him, but I hope I can fight with him.”

Lappi benefitted from cleaner road conditions and problems hitting his rivals to reach the front

Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images

Lappi’s words were somewhat prophetic as Rovanpera raced into an early lead. After missing out on a podium last year, Toyota left no stone unturned in its preparations, having entered Rovanpera and team-mate Elfyn Evans into the Arctic Lapland Rally the week prior. On the face of things, the GR Yaris showed signs of improvement.

A somewhat relaxed and rejuvenated Rovanpera had a clear goal: “Definitely, the plan is to push more for wins, and of course it doesn’t mean that you will get more of them, but that is the goal,” he said.

It was a plan Toyota boss Jari-Matti Latvala backed: “We want to win the event and if Elfyn is at the front with a difficult [starting] position then we want Kalle to go out there and really try to win the event,” he said. “Of course, this is an event we really want to win as it is a bit like a home event for us and especially after Monte Carlo [won by Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville].”

"I think some guys in front had opened up a bit of a hole in the bank and it kicked us quite hard" Kalle Rovanpera

Friday began with a poignant reminder of a sorely missed WRC hero in Craig Breen, who lit up the rally last year on his way to second, driving for Hyundai in what was tragically his last WRC outing before his untimely death. The entire Hyundai team wore Breen beanie hats in honour of the much-loved Irishman, while rally organisers renamed the Brattby stage that kicked off Friday’s action ‘#42 Brattby’ after Breen declared himself the “Mayor of Brattby” following his record time driving the #42 i20 N 12 months ago.

Deep snow and fog made Brattby a real challenge, frustrating championship leader Neuville, who was first to tackle it, but the Belgian was convinced his former team-mate would have still loved it.

“That was very challenging,” he said. “Visibility was close to zero with the fog – everything looks the same. I think only the real Mayor of Brattby would have loved that stage, but I didn’t.”

Toyota’s plan appeared to be working, with Rovanpera opening up a 5.7-second lead after the first three stages, although he wasn’t overly happy with his driving, labelling his effort as “horrible” in stage three.

Rovanpera led early on but threw away his chance of victory with a Stage 5 off

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Team-mate Evans was extremely fortunate not to find the snowbanks when his GR Yaris pirouetted 360 degrees at speed. The Welshman didn’t flinch in the moment and just “tried to hold onto it”.
This kind of fortune didn’t continue into the next test but it was the favourite Rovanpera who hit trouble. He lost control of his GR Yaris, which fired deep into a snowbank causing significant damage to the radiator. The victory chance was over.

“We went wide on a quite simple place, a right-hand corner,” said Rovanpera. “I wasn’t really expecting to have any moment there at that speed, so it caught me by surprise a bit. I think some guys in front had opened up a bit of a hole in the bank and it kicked us quite hard, and we basically just spun 360 degrees and broke the radiator.”

Rovanpera wasn’t the only world champion caught out by conditions. Hyundai’s Ott Tanak, who had seemingly defied his advanced road position to sit third, soon learned the peril of overstepping the use of the snowbanks. Last year’s Sweden winner continued using EV power before coming to a halt on the road. “I hit the bank far too hard and we spun and damaged the cooling package,” said the Estonian.

Tanak’s stricken i20 N almost caused another incident as M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux was caught by surprise to see the car, but he somehow he managed to narrowly avoid contact. “We had a big close call with Ott,” said Forumaux. “I didn’t know he was ahead so it was a surprise. We were lucky that we are here without touching him so that is the main thing.”

Fourmaux’s M-Sport team-mate Gregoire Munster also suffered misfortune in the stage when one of his tyres delaminated. Sweden’s harsh climate resulted in an unusual four-minute tyre change.

“I have no idea how it happened as the tyre was new,” said Munster. “We had to change the tyre, and the battery on the wheelgun was dead because of the cold so we had to change it by hand.”

This was just the start of an eventful Friday for the Belgian-Luxembourger who would later lose a rear side window that required an on-the-fly repair the A Team would have been proud of, as Munster ingeniously fashioned a window out of team jacket.

“You don’t want anything like the hybrid unit to get too wet and also having water or fresh snow coming inside make it very difficult for the windscreen to stay normal and not to fog up,” said Munster. “We tried to make a window out of my jacket and it worked 35% I reckon, but it still worked. We got some cable ties and some tape and bit of everything. I think there was more effort than the results.”

Munster showed initiative by replacing a missing window with a jacket

Photo by: M-Sport

The demise of two frontrunners in Rovanpera and Tanak handed Toyota’s impressive Takamoto Katsuta a 11.4s lead over Lappi. Evans was a further 1.9s back but ahead of Fourmaux, Neuville and top WRC2 runner Oliver Solberg.

If the challenge posed by Sweden’s snow and icy road wasn’t enough, it was turned up to 11 across the afternoon as heavy snow began to fall. This was bad news for the Rally1 runners, who faced the worst of the conditions. The timing screen was turned on its head.

The second pass through #42 Brattby was incredibly won by WRC2 driver Georg Linnamae as the Estonian recorded the first overall stage win for the new Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 car. Nine of the top 10 were Rally2 cars, with only Lappi representing the top class.

"It's not aquaplaning – it's snowplaning. Even if you are safe you can still lose it" Esapekka Lappi

As road position becoming an increasingly more valuable commodity, controversy reigned when Neuville suddenly stopped before the start of stage six, with his i20 N struggling to fire up. After working under the bonnet to revive the car, the Belgian checked into the stage four minutes late, incurring a 40s penalty. It also meant he would no longer be tackling the stage first and that disadvantage was handed to title rival Evans, who suspected foul play.

“I guess the spirit of competition has gone out of the window,” said Evans. “Let’s wait to cast judgement on that before we say something we regret.” He later added: “I’m not sure what’s been going on, but if that was intentional then they need a new strategist I think.”

Neuville refuted such suggestions, claiming his i20 N was suffering from a fuel pressure problem and that Evans was aware of the issue.

“We were forcing the fuel pump manually and there was nothing I could do,” said Neuville. “To calm everybody down, if I wanted to do strategy I had 53 minutes before the stage so I could have stopped anywhere and work on the car and not just before the Time Control.”

Neuville did benefit from the road order switch as he beat Evans on each of the day’s remaining stages despite a couple of scares with snowbanks and a broken bonnet pin that threatened to completely obstruct his vision.

Evans was suspicious of Hyundai tactics that Neuville insisted were nothing of the sort

Photo by: Toyota Racing

At the front, Lappi coped the best in the blizzard as he overhauled Katsuta on stage seven before ending the day with a 3.2s lead. But it was not easy work.

“It's not aquaplaning – it's snowplaning,” said Lappi. “Even if you are safe you can still lose it.” Munster likened the lack of control to a “being in a ball pool when you're a child”.

But the star of the day was undoubtedly Solberg, who ended Friday leading the WRC2 class while sitting an amazing third overall, ahead of Rally1 drivers Fourmaux, Evans and Neuville. “Third place in a WRC2 car is incredible and here on my home rally there is such a spectacular atmosphere,” said Solberg. “It's a bit of a dream and I'm very happy.”

The effects of the heavy snow effectively distilled the battle for victory into a head-to-head between Lappi and Katsuta, who were more than a minute ahead of the rest of the field. With the carrot of a maiden WRC win dangling in front of Katsuta, coupled with much clearer conditions, the Japanese pushed, closing to within 0.9s of Lappi. However, on stage 10 (Sarsjoliden) he was punished for overstepping the mark in the most brutal way that reduced Katsuta to tears.

“Obviously, I was trying hard and at one corner I came in with a bit too much speed and snapped the rear,” said a distraught Katsuta. “Then we got stuck in the snowbank. It is hard to find the words.”

Having inherited a 1m31.6s lead, the odds of Lappi ending one of the longest victory droughts in WRC history seemed to be stacked in his favour. Cruise mode was engaged to lead the field home to pocket the 18 points under the new points system (18-15-13-10-8-6-4-3-2-1) that offers rewards to the top 10 that can only be banked upon the completion of Sunday.

Fourmaux confirmed his stunning pace by recording a fastest time on stage 11 (Bygdsiljum). He survived a late altercation with a snowbank in stage 15 to hold off a recovering Evans by 16.7s to sit second and claim 15 points. Evans took 13 points, with Neuville provisionally securing 10 points after recovering to fourth, as Solberg (eight points) slipped to a still impressive fifth overall.

Fourmaux’s head-turning performance didn’t go unnoticed by M-Sport boss Malcolm Wilson, who celebrated his birthday on the Saturday. “Before I came to this rally I certainly didn’t expect to be challenging for a podium and I didn’t think we would be near getting a fastest time,” Wilson told Autosport. “He has given me the perfect birthday present. He has definitely exceeded my expectations for the event.”

Katsuta became the latest potential challenger to stumble on Saturday morning, handing Lappi a clear run

Photo by: Toyota Racing

There was little Hyundai boss Cyril Abiteboul needed to say to his rally leader and, for the first time in 2394 days, the smiling Lappi was a WRC winner again after calmly navigating Sunday’s final three stages. He reached the finish with a margin of 29.6s ahead of Evans, Fourmaux, Neuville (who lost his tailgate over a jump in the final stage) and top WRC2 performer Solberg, who took a fine fifth.

“I’m glad it is over,” said Lappi in what was a fitting victory for the Hyundai team that celebrated by holding up a picture last year’s Sweden star Breen on the podium. “When you are not in a fight you just want to see the finish line.

“I don’t think it makes up for all of the near misses but for sure last year in Sardinia I really thought I could have [a chance] and I wanted to fight for it, but that was not really the case. But maybe this makes up for that.”

"He has given me the perfect birthday present. He has definitely exceeded my expectations for the event" Malcolm Wilson on Adrien Fourmaux

While Lappi cruised to a well-received victory, the new Super Sunday format delivered the action the WRC hoped it would. With the top seven drivers across Sunday’s stages claiming points (7-6-5-4-3-2-1) on top of the five bonus points for the Power Stage, Evans pushed and leapfrogged Fourmaux to claim second, leaving the Frenchman to secure a thoroughly deserved maiden WRC podium in third.

Rovanpera, who rejoined the rally, played the ideal team game by backing off to help Evans finish on top of the Super Sunday classification. Evans would have taken a maximum 12 points had he not clipped a snowbank in the Power Stage.

Interestingly Evans, who is not an advocate of the new points system, benefited by taking home the most points from Sweden with 24, while winner Lappi claimed 19. As a result, Evans trails Neuville by three points in the championship. Fourmaux climbed to third ahead of part-timer Sebastien Ogier and Tanak. The latter salvaged six points by finishing fourth in the Super Sunday standings and the Power Stage.

A jubilant Fourmaux perhaps summed up Rally Sweden the best as both he and Lappi ended challenging barren runs in their respective careers.

“It shows that if you never give up you can maybe get it one day,” said Fourmaux. “If you believe in a dream, you just have to follow it and ignore people saying you cannot achieve it.”

Almost as jubilant as Lappi was Fourmaux, who took a maiden WRC podium

Photo by: M-Sport