How the WRC's new flying Finn reached new heights in the Greek mountains

It’s known as the Rally of the Gods, and those looking down from on high would have been in awe of Kalle Rovanpera’s devastating display to win the Acropolis Rally, a performance that confirmed the Finn as the World Rally Championship’s brightest young talent. 

In July, Rovanpera justified the hype that has surrounded him by becoming the youngest ever WRC winner on Rally Estonia. But last weekend’s dominance of the infamous Acropolis – on its WRC return after a seven-year hiatus – was all the more impressive.

Toyota driver Rovanpera was relentless and in a different league at times, and left world champions Sebastien Ogier and Ott Tanak reeling in his wake. The 20-year-old won eight of the 15 stages to score a crushing 42.1s victory over the Hyundai of Tanak.

In years gone by, the Acropolis earned a reputation as a car breaker due to its hot, rough gravel stages. It was Europe’s answer to the Safari Rally, a true feat of endurance. This year’s highly anticipated return didn’t quite live up to that billing, but it offered an entirely new challenge as the weather gods intervened.

Dry heat was replaced by heavy rain and fog early in the week, transforming the rough stages to much smoother, muddy and more slippery roads. Such was the intensity of the weather that the crews, the majority of which were new to the Acropolis, were severely hampered in making pacenotes.

It resulted in long nights for drivers and co-drivers during the event as they studied onboard videos to make their all-important notes, amid concerns about the level of grip available.

Sébastien Ogier, Julien Ingrassia, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota Yaris WRC

Photo by: Toyota Racing

“The rally will be really tough as the heavy rain has softened the roads and this mud is slippery like hell,” said Hyundai boss Andrea Adamo. “The rally was difficult and now it will be even more difficult.”

Ogier added: “In these countries which are not used to having rain, the ground is extremely slippery and some sections have absolutely no grip in recce and you come with no speed and you lose the car.”

Luckily the wild weather abated as the rally kicked off in downtown Athens in the shadow of the famous Parthenon on Thursday night. The love for rallying and the famous Acropolis Rally in these parts remains as strong as ever, and fans flocked to catch a glimpse of the WRC stars tearing around the city streets in a Super Special curtain raiser.

Ogier won the test as Toyota recorded a 1-2-3. The team’s fourth Yaris for Takamoto Katsuta was a notable withdrawal, after co-driver Keaton Williams was required to return home for a family emergency.

"In the end I got it working, it was not perfect but enough to do the stage. It gave us the opportunity to drive faster and to survive. We used the brake fluid, we used the engine oil, if we had to pee inside I would have done it" Thierry Neuville

Traditional gravel stages were the order of the day on a Friday that was headlined by drama: title contenders Elfyn Evans (Toyota) and Thierry Neuville (Hyundai) saw their hopes of victory and catching Ogier in the championship dashed by lunchtime.

Evans had been sitting third after the day’s first test when gearbox gremlins struck ahead of stage three, resulting in a 40s penalty for checking in at time control four minutes late. The Welshman then had to haul his Yaris through the test stuck in fourth gear. A further 1m30s time penalty was added for being late to the next time control, on top of the time lost for being unable to downshift.

“My paddle [shift] was not working at all basically,” said Evans, “but I had the means to go up but not down, so then it was a case where in certain sections to go up a gear, you struggle a lot when it gets tighter. We tried to do what we could and the team was working behind the scenes, but there is only so much you can do in that situation.”

Elfyn Evans, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT

Photo by: Toyota Racing

The morning loop ran without a mid-point service and punctuated only by a tyre-fitting zone, and it was here where Neuville fell foul. The Hyundai driver was already battling an electrical issue when he was then hit by a power-steering failure. The winner last time out in Belgium was 24 minutes late to stage four, and was slapped with four-minute time penalty. On top of that, he had to wrestle the i20 through the stage, haemorrhaging time.

Neuville showcased his remarkable mechanical skills with a Herculean effort to repair the power-steering issue for the afternoon stages by glueing a leaking power-steering pipe and then topping up the reservoir with any liquid he could find. He even considered his own body fluids.

“I was much more mechanic than driver to be honest,” said Neuville. “In the end I got it working, it was not perfect but enough to do the stage. It gave us the opportunity to drive faster and to survive. We used the brake fluid, we used the engine oil, if we had to pee inside I would have done it.”

Away from the drama, the battle at the front was intense. Rovanpera took the rally lead after stage three and won two of the day’s five stages to hold a slender 3.7s margin over Tanak, while Ogier’s Toyota was only 0.2s further back after opening the road. Dani Sordo’s Hyundai and the M-Sport Ford duo of Adrien Fourmaux and Gus Greensmith completed the top six, while Evans was down in 16th and Neuville 18th, several minutes adrift.

The day ended with one last bit of drama when Hyundai 2C Competition driver Pierre-Louis Loubet suffered a steering-arm failure that left him teetering on the edge of a drop, forcing organisers to red-flag the day’s final stage. Loubet attempted a return, but was forced out on Sunday morning with mechanical issue.

If Friday provided a glimpse into Rovanpera’s pace, the picture was fully revealed on Saturday when the Finn left his rivals for dust – literally. He stamped his authority on the event after reeling off four consecutive stage wins on a morning loop of tests that featured sections of slippery mud, remnants of the wild weather that hit earlier in the week. The pace, he declared, was down to an inspired soft/hard-tyre call from his engineer.

Toyota boss Jari-Matti Latvala was stunned by the pace: “I must say he is a flying Finn at the moment. Creating a 40s lead over the morning is pretty amazing. I don’t know what he ate this morning or where it was coming from, but it is great to see.”

Kalle Rovanperä, Jonne Halttunen, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota Yaris WRC

Photo by: Toyota Racing

Rovanpera’s only blemish during his scintillating display was a high-speed clip with a bank that he labelled a “huge moment”, reporting: “I have to say we were lucky to escape and that there was nothing in the ditch.”

On stage 10, Rovanpera took an astonishing 18.3s out of Tanak, who had a technical issue caused by an impact and not a driver error, according to the Hyundai team. Ogier took the next stage to close to just 2.5s off second spot, but that was short-lived as Tanak responded by winning the day’s final test to re-establish a comfortable gap back to the reigning world champion.

With the heavy lifting completed, Rovanpera made a set-up change in service to protect his car ahead of the last two stages. It resulted in a downturn in pace, but he’d already inflicted the damage on the timesheets, and his lead was still a commanding 30.8s heading into the final day.

That was enough for Ogier to concede defeat and consolidate third, claiming “the main target is still out of reach at the moment and if we can finalise this podium, it will be another big step towards this title.”

"The new flying Finn was born in Estonia but this time he was flying even higher. We didn’t think about winning, and then suddenly this flying Finn comes and he is dominating the Saturday and Sunday of the rally" Jari-Matti Latvala

Sordo remained fourth, while the Fourmaux-Greensmith battle raged for fifth spot, and the recovering Evans and Neuville had climbed to seventh and 10th respectively.

The Acropolis had one more curveball up its sleeve: rain fell ahead of the final three stages (almost 45 miles) on Sunday, including the famous Tarzan test and Pyrgos – the rally’s longest stage at 20.6 miles. Not content with his commanding lead, a relentless Rovanpera destroyed his opposition with a contender for stage drive of the season on the morning’s opener, held in light rain.

You needed a visa to get near the Toyota, which eclipsed nearest rival Tanak, who was battling an electrical issue that left him without windscreen wipers, by 14.1s. Almost half a minute slower, Ogier rued a poor tyre choice, reporting that he was unaware of the forecasted rain.

Kalle Rovanperä, Jonne Halttunen, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota Yaris WRC

Photo by: Toyota Racing

The game was well and truly up. Nobody could live with the pace coming from the leading Toyota. With a 44.9s lead, Rovanpera could afford to drop 9.9s to Tanak on the penultimate stage, before underlining his perfect drive with victory on the final Power Stage to claim maximum points.

"I was not maybe the most comfortable coming here, but it just showed that now everything is going well for us and we can really push hard. It feels great,” said Rovanpera.

Tanak avoided late drama, when smoke poured at the stage start from his i20, to clinch second overall, with Ogier third, 1m11.3s in arrears. Evans and Neuville salvaged four and two bonus points respectively from the Power Stage, but in truth their title hopes now require misfortune to strike Ogier in the three remaining events.

Sordo finished a lonely fourth, while Greensmith took fifth after an engine issue resulted in a time penalty for Fourmaux that dropped the Frenchman to seventh behind Evans, with Neuville eighth.

To put it simply, it was a masterclass from Rovanpera, a feat not lost on Toyota boss Latvala.

“The new flying Finn was born in Estonia but this time he was flying even higher,” he said. “We didn’t think about winning, and then suddenly this flying Finn comes and he is dominating the Saturday and Sunday of the rally. It’s really amazing to see his performance and how calm and how mature he is.”

Acropolis will be a hard act to follow, but odds will be short on Rovanpera adding a third win at Rally Finland next month.

Winner Kalle Rovanperä, Jonne Halttunen, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota Yaris WRC

Photo by: Toyota Racing