How the WRC saw a different side to Rovanpera in his latest Acropolis triumph

Acropolis Rally king Colin McRae turned mastering the brutal Greek gravel roads into an art form thanks to a perfect blend of speed and mechanical sympathy. It was these very attributes that Kalle Rovanpera showed in abundance to survive and conquer one of the toughest World Rally Championship events in recent memory last weekend. His second Acropolis win from three attempts once again outlined the 22-year-old's remarkable talent as Rovanpera took another step not only towards McRae’s Acropolis undisputed benchmark of five wins, but a second world title.

Rovanpera’s Acropolis success in the blazing sunshine on Sunday afternoon seemed hard to believe after an unprecedented build-up to the rally. An extreme weather event in the form of Storm Daniel unloaded a torrent of water, the likes of which Greece has rarely witnessed, causing flash floods and devastation to communities. Thoughts turned to ensuring people’s safety rather than competing in a rally as the Greek government sent out a series of emergency notifications to mobile phones warning against travelling.

The deluge disrupted the recce earlier in the week by rendering some stages barely passable, making the art of forming pacenotes almost impossible. There were fears that stages would be lost, but organisers were insistent that a rally would occur as long as it was safe.

“Absolutely none,” rally event director Pavlos Athanassoulas said when asked if there was any suggestion the rally could be cancelled. “We have witnessed in the last two days the biggest amount of water fall in the history of Greece. We will do whatever is safe for the drivers, spectators and everybody involved in the rally.”

Toyota’s Sebastien Ogier, returning to the WRC for his sixth start of the year, was sceptical: “The idea is that the weather should improve a lot over the weekend, so I think that is why everyone is trying to maintain this race and make it happen. Obviously, if the weather carries on like this, personally I think it is not reasonable to continue. It looks like it should improve, but of course, it is difficult for us.”

The forecast was correct as the rain eventually relented, but a call was made to cancel Thursday’s shakedown, while stages two and 14-15 would be shortened by 7.5km (just under five miles) and 10km respectively due to the water-damaged roads. A call was made for organisers to conduct a recce of the stages the day before they were run, with onboard videos distributed to the teams to allow for accurate pacenotes to be made.

Many anticipated that the rally might not go ahead so bad were conditions in the lead up to the event which caused shakedown's cancellation and disrupted recces

Photo by: M-Sport

On the whole, drivers were comfortable with the decision to continue, although Hyundai boss Cyril Abiteboul summed up a conflicting mood in the service park.

“We are half-minded – you want to honour the obligation and the fact there has been lots of effort from the organiser and the country itself to put together a rally,” he said. “But we also must respect the fact that we have a community here that is facing an adverse situation and they also need the support of the authorities and police and so on to make sure civilians are safe. We don’t want to aggravate the situation. It is important that everyone is safe.”

There was no question an already notoriously challenging rally had its difficult rating taken up a notch as drivers headed into relatively unknown stage conditions, gambling on set-ups. Before tackling Greece’s iconic rough gravel mountain roads there was a quick blast around brand-new superspecial created to mark the rally’s 70th anniversary, 200km south-east of Lamia in the Greek capital, Athens. Among the crowd was FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem, who paid tribute to those affected by the week’s earlier extreme weather at the ceremonial start, held in the shadow of the famous wonder of the world – the Acropolis.

"It was difficult even if it was maybe a bit less difficult than we could have expected because it dried out quite quickly" Thierry Neuville

Rovanpera was fully fit after his Rally Finland crash and set the pace to grab an early lead from Hyundai's trio Esapekka Lappi, Thierry Neuville and Dani Sordo. But Rovanpera knew this would be short-lived because he was starting first on the roads on Friday.

A sign of how attritional this rally would become arrived before the action began on the gravel stages. M-Sport’s Pierre-Louis Loubet struggled to breathe life into his Ford Puma, which had suffered a water pump issue and stranded him on a road section. His rally was over before it had begun, in stark contrast to 12 months ago when the Frenchman came of age by notching up his maiden stage wins and briefly led the event.

To rub salt into M-Sport’s weeping wounds, Ott Tanak also suffered a sudden issue with his water pump during Friday’s mid-point tyre fitting zone. This was fixable but cost 3m40s in time penalties for leaving the zone 22 minutes late. It demoted the Estonian to 32nd overall, effectively ending any hopes of a strong result.

“We have let [Loubet] down and we are very sorry for that,” said M-Sport team principal Richard Millener. “He came for the result this weekend and that is not possible, so they made the decision not to continue for the rest of the weekend. These are brand-new parts that we are having issues with. It is frustrating for us all.”

“It is frustrating for everyone, it has been all year with too many things like this happening,” said Tanak, who would score two stage wins with his Puma once its health was restored.

Loubet's rally was over virtually before it had started as M-Sport suffered an ignominious Friday

Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images

The Acropolis had uncovered a weakness in the all-conquering Toyota GR Yaris last year as sixth was the best the Japanese brand could muster, while Hyundai completed its first WRC podium lockout. However, Friday underlined the progress that Toyota has made in improving this vulnerability on rough gravel.

While the rain clouds had been replaced by traditional Greek sunshine, the stages remained particularly wet and muddy, more reminiscent of rain-soaked Safari Rally Kenya roads. The challenge was incredibly tough, highlighted by stage three (Pissia) where the rainwater had created a compression that provided a scare for several crews. Rovanpera, Lappi and Takamoto Katsuta were pitched into a Buckaroo moment, almost rolling end over end.

"We had a huge moment – the impact was huge so it threw the car everywhere,” said Rovanpera, who claimed the stage win despite the scare.

The afternoon presented the more traditional Greek vista of rally cars tackling mountain roads followed by plumes of dust. It was bad news for Rovanpera, but music to the ears of Neuville. The Belgian’s call to fit soft tyres gave him the edge over Ogier, who elected to preserve the limited soft tyre allocation.

Neuville thus led the field at the end of Friday, trailed by a trio of Toyotas. Ogier, minus part of his rear wing, led the chasing pack a mere 2.8 seconds adrift, with Rovanpera impressing in third, 25.5s behind the leading Hyundai. Rovanpera’s title rival and team-mate Elfyn Evans, who also had lost his rear wing, was hot on his heels in fourth despite losing a tyre off the rim in the morning loop.

“It was difficult even if it was maybe a bit less difficult than we could have expected because it dried out quite quickly,” said Neuville. “We had a good run through and we made the tyre choice to be the leader tonight. Is it the tyre choice to be the leader at the end of the weekend? We are going to find out.”

While Ogier remained firmly in the victory fight, Rovanpera admitted the gap to Neuville was “maybe just a bit too much than what I wanted”.

But the survival story of the day belonged to Lappi. The Finn had damaged his Hyundai’s radiator in a compression, which meant he was constantly searching for water to keep the car going. A quick visit to a restaurant on a road section provided salvation, allowing him to reach the service park in fifth.

Neuville surged into the lead, but was sidelined on Saturday afternoon when his suspension failed

Photo by: Austral / Hyundai Motorsport

“I could get water from the stage ends as we could get bottles and once we stopped at a restaurant on a road section,” said Lappi, who felt his lack of pace was not down to the radiator issue, but a wrong call on set-up. “There was a tap outside of the restaurant and we filled the bottles.”

This was only the beginning of Lappi’s woes as a brutal Saturday inflicted further pain. First, his handbrake let go on stage seven, before he hit a rock that Lappi declared “was lucky to only cause a puncture”. An alternator failure and broken driveshaft left his i20 N wounded across the afternoon. At one point he declared his “day was done” but somehow he was able to complete the six stages, albeit more than six minutes adrift of the lead.

This was merely the tip of the iceberg when it came to drama on Saturday. Title contender Evans thought his rally was over when his GR Yaris suffered a leaking radiator that cost more than a minute after ending the final stage of the morning loop using EV mode. The Welshman didn’t need a Lappi-style emergency restaurant reservation, but was able to magic up a fix to nurse the car back to service in fifth. It was a blessed relief for his championship hopes. “It is fair to say that the hybrid saved me," said Evans.

"Somehow since I’m not doing the full championship anymore, the luck has been lost a bit, maybe that is the price to pay" Sebastien Ogier

The roads continued to bite and on Saturday afternoon they claimed the biggest scalps, Neuville and Ogier. The duo had continued their intense head-to-head for the lead across the morning loop. Ogier briefly overhauled the 2.8s gap to grab the lead after stage seven, only for Neuville to immediately fight back before galloping into a 10.9s advantage over the eight-time world champion.

But luck, which Ogier asserted was a key element to win the Acropolis before the rally, deserted Neuville on stage 10. The Belgian struck a hole in the road, on the driving line, causing terminal damage to his i20 N’s front-right suspension. A forlorn Neuville was left to sit at the side of the road as his victory hopes, and realistically his slim title chances, evaporated.

“Luck wasn’t with us this weekend,” said Neuville. “Everything was going perfectly until our suspension failure, and unfortunately that cost us a victory.”

This elevated Ogier into a 12.6s lead over a charging Rovanpera, who had reeled off fastest times in three of four Saturday stages up to this point. Rovanpera took another 0.2s nibble out of his team-mate on the next test to remind him a duel for victory was on, before it suddenly wasn’t.

A double rear puncture slowed Ogier to a crawl on Saturday’s final stage, handing Rovanpera the lead, before a further impact resulted in the collapse of his left-rear suspension. Ogier valiantly attempted to drag the car back to service before having to abandon the GR Yaris seven miles from his mechanics.

Ogier blasted into the lead when Neuville retired, but his own rally wouldn't last much longer

Photo by: Toyota Racing

“Of course it is always tough to take and is always frustrating,” lamented Ogier. “Somehow since I’m not doing the full championship anymore, the luck has been lost a bit, maybe that is the price to pay. Kalle was doing a great job anyway so you cannot say that he has stolen this victory.”

Ogier’s exit opened a rather large door for Rovanpera to come through. But as Ogier explained, Rovanpera deserved to be in this position, having won five of the day’s six stages. Rovanpera was afforded the luxury of 2m04.4s lead over Sordo’s Hyundai, the only other Rally1 driver to avoid punctures or mechanical issues. Evans was poised in third, 5s further back.

Three stages remained of this trial by endurance. Having experienced how the Acropolis can bite over the previous 48 hours, and no doubt mindful of his crash last year, Rovanpera backed off on Sunday morning. He lost a minute of his lead, having engaged cruise mode, but the Finn is rarely shackled for too long. His “full send” approach was back for the rally ending Power Stage as, in his words, “there is always need when you can grab extra points”. The result was inevitable; an eighth stage win of the rally, the overall victory and the maximum bonus points.

“It is big relief – after a difficult Rally Finland we need to come back even though we never left,” reflected the now 11-time WRC rally winner. “It is always quite clear that you need to finish and take care of the car, so that was our plan, to push hard from the first place [on the road]. I didn’t take all the risks.”

Rovanpera’s winning margin stood at 1m31.7s but it was over title rival Evans and not Sordo. Evans managed to edge the Hyundai driver by 4.2s to complete an impressive recovery. That was one of many stunning fightbacks as Tanak recovered to fourth, ahead of Lappi and Katsuta, who was delayed by a double puncture on stage 11.

But it was Andreas Mikkelsen who earned the best recovery after winning the WRC2 class from Gus Greensmith despite suffering left-rear punctures that dropped the Skoda driver to 16th in class. There were also celebrations for Ireland’s William Creighton and Liam Regan, who claimed the Junior WRC title after finishing fifth in class despite retiring from Friday with a radiator issue.

Acropolis once again tested everyone to their limits but, once again, Rovanpera answered all the questions with speed, guile and maturity beyond his years. His third win of the season leaves him 33-points clear of rival Evans with 90 to play for.

“He is young but he is bloody clever,” said Toyota’s sporting director Kaj Lindstrom. “I think Kalle was the smartest driver at this rally.”

Avoiding big risks paid off for Rovanpera, who showed he's more than just blindingly quick but a cerebral driver too

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool