How Rovanpera fired the WRC a timely reminder of his class in Portugal

Without a win since becoming the youngest World Rally champion last October, and having registered only one podium in four events this season, Kalle Rovanpera’s quiet start to his World Rally Championship title defence had started to raise questions. But in Portugal last weekend, the Finn delivered an emphatic answer to prove once again that form is temporary and class is permanent.

Rovanpera already knew that defending his crown was going to be more difficult than winning the first, but few would have predicted his start to 2023 after raising the bar to heights never seen before from a 22-year-old in the WRC. Twelve months ago, Rovanpera didn’t seem human during his relentless record-breaking run to the title. These mesmerising performances were so frequent they had become the norm and expected every time he jumped behind the wheel, leaving many surprised by his absence from the podium in the previous three events prior to Portugal.

This run was bought to an abrupt end and in some fashion as Rovanpera was back to his very best. The Toyota driver produced one of the best performances of his career to utterly dominate Portugal’s tough gravel stages to win by almost a minute. And true to his “Full Send” moniker that adorns his crash helmet and a rapidly growing merchandise range, the trademark Power Stage prowess returned to complete the perfect victory.

“It has been a bit too long coming but I knew when we get a clean weekend and a good drive we would be back in the game,” said a relieved Rovanpera. “It was nice to have it here and be back.”

While he ultimately made the victory look easy, it was far from it.

Rovanpera admitted after Rally Croatia last month that he hadn’t been preparing well for rallies by nailing the car set-up in the pre-event tests. With a premium on test days now as part of the FIA’s cost-saving strategy of reducing teams to 21 days, Toyota elected to test in Sardinia prior to Portugal to gather knowledge for the upcoming round on the Italian island, where it struggled last year. It meant Rovanpera was more hopeful than convinced he would be on the pace in Portugal. Starting second on the road behind team-mate Elfyn Evans, who shared the points lead after his drought-breaking emotional win in Croatia, also wasn’t ideal.

Rovanpera served up a masterclass to destroy the opposition in Portugal

Photo by: Toyota Racing

When asked by Autosport if he felt he’d prepared better, Rovanpera said: “I hope so, we chose to test for these two events in Sardinia so that makes it a bit tricky. I feel confident we have a good car now. For sure starting second is better than being first but it is not a big help to be honest. Like we saw last year, you can do a good result from being first also if everything goes right.”

Everything pretty much went right for Rovanpera on Friday, the toughest day of the rally. Rough stages that elevated the risk of punctures coupled with road cleaning duties left those at the top of the order facing a damage limitation exercise. However, there were warning signs that something special was brewing after the morning loop, when Rovanpera headed to the remote tyre fitting service having won stage three to leave him only three seconds adrift of rally leader M-Sport’s Ott Tanak.

M-Sport Ford, however, grabbed the early headlines as Pierre-Louis Loubet made the most of his advantageous road position to win the opening test to claim an early lead. Tanak took the honours in the second test to usurp his team-mate at the top of the leaderboard despite a challenging run through the rough roads.

The prospect of retirement for Loubet remained high as regulations permit only a couple of mechanics to assist, and only equipment carried in the car can be used to fix any issues. It meant brute force was required

“It's a shaky ride at the moment – it feels like a wooden horse!” said Tanak. “When it's smoother it's better, but on the bedrock it's a bit shaky.”

Some of the shine was taken off the British team’s strong start when a small internal fire broke out on Loubet’s Puma towards the end of the third stage. The Frenchman and co-driver Nicolas Gilsoul had the doors open as they crossed the finish line ready to jump out to attend to the fire that had emerged underneath the car. It was caused by the exhaust, which had moved out of alignment and was touching the chassis.

An angry Loubet threw his gloves to the floor believing his rally was over. However, once the fire was controlled, he was able to reach the remote service, although the prospect of retirement remained high as regulations permit only a couple of mechanics to assist, and only equipment carried in the car can be used to fix any issues. It meant brute force was required.

“Luckily the guys were able to get it back in alignment,” said M-Sport team principal Rich Millener. “I think there was some very precision kicking, it was as simple as that. You can’t get to it [the exhaust], you can see the front and you can see the back. They lined the front up and kicked the back as hard as they could to get it straight again. That’s rallying.”

After precision kicking kept Loubet in the running, he shunted out on day two

Photo by: M-Sport

A thankful Loubet survived the scare and would go on to end the day fourth overall, less than half a minute adrift of the lead. While Loubet dodged a potential bullet, his team-mate and rally leader Tanak wasn’t so fortunate. His front right tyre came off the rim in stage four, spelling disaster for his victory hopes after dropping 54.1s.

“It went on the start, I think,” said a frustrated Tanak, who dropped from the lead to seventh.

Tanak’s problems initially handed the lead to Dani Sordo, who led Hyundai’s charge, while team-mates Thierry Neuville and Esapekka Lappi struggled to find the set-up window. A month on from the tragic death of Craig Breen, his team-mate with whom he shared the third i20 N, Sordo honoured his friend by wearing a special Irish flag-liveried crash helmet, while all three Hyundai i20 Ns continued to carry tributes to the popular Irishman. The heartbreaking loss was still felt in the service park and around the stages as the droves of spectators paid respect by painting Irish flags on the roads.

Sordo’s lead was short-lived as Rovanpera showed his class to surge to the front by winning stages five and six, and from there he never looked back. The Yaris returned to the service park equipped with a 10.8s lead over Sordo with Neuville rising to third, 26.0s back, after an afternoon push. Lappi was 1.3s further behind, but comfortably ahead of Tanak in sixth.

“I was struggling with the car in the morning but once we got the set up right it was good,” said Rovanpera. “I just had to avoid all the stones but there was thousands of them. You just hope for the best.”

It proved to be a bittersweet day for Toyota, though. Rovanpera had stunned to lead but the sister cars driven by Evans and Takamoto Katsuta were forced into retirement. Katsuta suffered a rare alternator failure that reared its head after the opening stage. He rejoined the action on Saturday.

As for Evans, he and co-driver Scott Martin were lucky to emerge unscathed from a huge crash on stage seven. Evans was caught out by a fast, sandy left-hander, which resulted in a heavy impact with the trees that lined the road, the car rolling six times. Evans and Martin underwent extensive medical checks and the car was too badly damaged to continue.

“We had a few checks last night, which took some time, but it all turned out well,” said Evans. “The car has done its job really well. It was a difficult day and of course the cleaning effect as we knew was going to be tough, but I also struggled with confidence and feeling in the car to be honest. Things were working better and I had a better feeling in the stage but I just got caught out.”

Evans was unable to continue after a heavy roll

Photo by: Toyota Racing

Saturday saw the return of the ‘Kalle Rovanpera Show’. There were several episodes last year but this was perhaps its first airing in 2023. He was simply untouchable at times, winning five of the seven stages, but his best display arrived on the morning’s first test. He posted a time 12.8s faster than the next best from Lappi and further 0.5s faster than his nearest rally rival Sordo.

When asked for this thoughts after seeing the time, Sordo admitted: "You feel like you are driving an R5 [Rally2 car], in a different category. We know he drives very well and has a big talent. He already did it last year. We know he can always go a little bit more and he can go, ‘Ciao, bang’.”

Rovanpera’s response was a more modest: “I just woke up today and thought we should drive a bit of rally, so that is what we tried to do.”

The domination left the field in his wake, with Sordo 57.5s in arrears. The victory almost certainly seemed to be heading to the world champion if he could avoid trouble across Sunday’s final four stages.

Neuville suffered a turbo issue that the Belgian believed stemmed from a human error. Severely restricted on power, he was forced to trundle through the remaining four stages and lost more than seven minutes

The attention switched to the minor podium places that were fought out between Hyundai team-mates Neuville and Lappi – the pair had traded third overall on four occasions. The fight had involved Loubet although the Frenchman exited that battle after stage 10 when he clipped a bank, which broke his steering and put him out of the rally until Sunday. That allowed Tanak to recover another spot, although the Estonian was struggling to “ride his horse” as he put it when describing the problems he was encountering with his Puma's set-up.

Sunday morning, however, was dominated by the battle for the WRC2 win that took a decisive and unexpected twist. Oliver Solberg was enjoying a troublefree run and a 35.4s lead over Toksport Skoda team-mate Gus Greensmith, who had battled a water leak and lost time to a puncture. But Solberg breached regulations by performing doughnuts following his run through Saturday evening’s side-by-side superspecial, held at the bespoke Lousada Rallycross circuit, crammed with thousands of spectators.

A one-minute penalty was deemed appropriate by FIA stewards, instead of the prescribed minimum five-minute penalty written in the regulations introduced after Sebastien Ogier performed doughnuts prior to the final podium at Rally Spain last year.

The penalty was labelled “harsh” and “unpopular” by Greensmith and was widely questioned by drivers and team bosses in the service park given Solberg’s exhibition driving was executed in a safe environment. It drew even more ire thanks to a wider discussion about improving the WRC’s appeal to fans and manufacturers that ran throughout the weekend.

Solberg was penalised for performing doughnuts for fans during Saturday's super special, which cost him the WRC2 win

Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images

“The sport can be so much more and so much bigger for fans,” said Solberg. “I just do what I enjoy in life and I try to bring joy to other people. I got that inspiration from Ken [Block]. I don’t regret anything I did, but clearly it was a mistake.”

The other topic heading into Sunday was whether Hyundai would deploy team orders to elevate its main championship contender Neuville ahead of Sordo to maximise his points. Team boss Cyril Abiteboul said on Saturday night: "We are one team, we have one goal and the three crews know exactly what needs to happen come Sunday.”

Unfortunately for Hyundai, matters were taken out of their hands when Neuville suffered a turbo issue that the Belgian believed stemmed from a human error. Severely restricted on power, he was forced to trundle through the remaining four stages and lost more than seven minutes before claiming fifth overall.

That result was fortunate after Neuville’s co-driver Martijn Wydaeghe forgot to hand in the timecard after stage 17 while under pressure due to the circumstances unfolding. Exclusion is often the punishment for this but the stewards showed leniency given the situation and slapped the pair with a 10,000 euro fine.

There was no such trouble for Rovanpera, who clinched a drought-ending victory in style by taking out the final Power Stage by 0.7s from Tanak. The latter had struggled with a hybrid system that “hadn’t woken up” after a short Saturday night, although luckily it returned for the final stage to help Tanak see fourth overall and four extra points.

Sordo claimed his best result to date driving the i20 N Rally1 as he trailed Rovanpera by 54.7s. It was a result he dedicated to Breen: “I want to say thanks to Craig because he was with me for the whole rally and pushing me to the limits.”

The WRC2 battle went down to the wire as Solberg almost recovered the gap to Greensmith, struggling with a power-steering issue. Ultimately, Solberg fell 1.2s short after a grandstand display on the Power Stage.

But the main takeaway from Rally Portugal was the return of Rovanpera to the top of the championship standings. It appears he could take some beating if this form continues.

Rovanpera is back to winning ways and leads the standings by 18 points over Tanak

Photo by: Toyota Racing