WRC Chile: Rovanpera seals victory to boost Toyota’s title hopes

Outgoing WRC champion Kalle Rovanpera leads Toyota 1-2 that helps to trim Hyundai's advantage in the manufacturers' standings

Toyota’s Kalle Rovanpera survived challenging foggy conditions to record a fourth win from a partial World Rally Championship campaign at Rally Chile.

Reigning world champion duo Rovanpera and co-driver Jonne Halttunen tamed 16 tricky stages, some of which were affected by treacherous thick fog and slippery conditions, to beat Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans by 23.4s. Hyundai’s Ott Tanak completed the podium, 43.9s behind, in the final gravel round of the year.

Rovanpera had initially struggled for outright speed in Friday’s dry conditions, admitting that his driving style didn’t suit Chile’s loose gravel stages. However, the Finn managed to haul his GR Yaris through the day's six tests in third, 10.1s off the pace.

Tanak had ended Friday with a 0.4s lead over Evans before stewards intervened. Toyota requested a review of the notional time awarded to Evans after stage one was cancelled for spectator safety reasons once Thierry Neuville, Tanak and Sebastien Ogier had passed through.

A revised time issued to Evans, that led to a failed protest from Hyundai, elevated Evans to the rally lead by three seconds heading into Saturday when weather conditions turned the event on its head.

The day’s abrasive stages suited Rovanpera’s style better and he climbed ahead of Tanak into second after stage eight.

However, two stage wins helped Evans extend his lead over Rovanpera to 11.3s before thick fog and rain closed in. The fog was at its worst on the mountainous stage 11, reducing visibility to 20 metres with Evans facing the worst of the conditions.

Evans deployed his soft tyres but couldn’t use them to their potential due to the poor visibility and duly dropped 24.1s, handing the rally lead to Rovanpera.

Taking advantage of the soft tyres he’d saved for the final stage, much wetter than anticipated, he opened up a 15.1s margin over his team-mate and scored the 18 points on offer with Evans settling for 15 points.

Tanak’s gamble for hard tyres backfired in the wet conditions, leaving the Estonian 33.6s adrift in third to earn 13 points. Championship leader Neuville, who performed an impressive damage limitation job having struggled for speed when opening the roads on Friday, climbed from seventh to fourth and scored 10 points.

Thick fog and muddy conditions continued into Sunday’s stages, before relenting for the Power Stage, but Rovanpera managed to hold his nerve to claim victory ahead of Evans and Tanak.

Ogier topped the Super Sunday classification to salvage points from a rally that promised much, but ended with the eight-time world champion conceding that his title hopes are over.

Ogier elected to limit his stage-end comments in protest over the FIA’s decision to hand him a suspended 30,000 euro fine for comments made after stage one at the previous round in Greece.

On the stages though he burst out of the blocks to lead the rally on Friday morning, before knocking a tyre off the rim when he clipped a bank in stage three. The wheel change cost the Toyota driver 1m45s, but his rally hopes were dealt a critical blow when he hit a rock in stage eight that broke a bolt in the GR Yaris’ front right suspension.

Ogier’s blistering speed across Sunday’s weather affected stages was unmatched as he claimed the maximum 12 Super Sunday points after pipping rally winner Rovanpera by 0.1s on the final Power Stage. Evans secured 21 points from the weekend after finishing third in the Sunday standings and fifth on the Power Stage.

Neuville reached the rally finish in fourth [+1m01.2s], but his championship lead was reduced to 29 points over Tanak with two rounds of the season remaining.

The Toyota 1-2 helped the Japanese brand cut the gap to Hyundai to 17 points in the manufacturers’ standings.

M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux brought his Ford Puma home in fifth [+2m02.7s] after an eventful Friday dashed his podium hopes.

An alternator issue that caused damage to a water pipe, necessitating a road-side repair, resulted in Fourmaux checking in six minutes late to stage five. This incurred a one minute penalty and came after the Frenchman had been running in third.

Fourmaux picked up two Super Sunday points on his way to finishing ahead of Toyota’s rising star Sami Pajari, selected instead of regular Takamoto Katsuta. The Finn completed an error-free drive in only his second Rally1 start to claim sixth [+2m39.8s].

Gregoire Munster produced arguably his best drive of the year to finish seventh [+2m47.8s], having challenged for a top five result by sitting in fourth on Friday.

Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi struggled to extract grip from his i20 N throughout the rally. A delaminated tyre on Friday and a two-minute penalty for checking into Saturday’s stage 11 early left the Finn a distant eighth.

Damage to the front of the car following a spin on stage 15 resulted in Hyundai retiring the car.

M-Sport’s Martins Sesks made his third Rally1 start driving a non-hybrid powered Ford Puma. The Latvian’s hopes were dashed by a double puncture while carrying only one spare on Friday, which prompted an early retirement. Sesks rejoined the rally to complete Saturday and Sunday’s stages.

In WRC2, Yohan Rossel boosted his title hopes by taking the class victory, finishing eighth overall. The Frenchman vaulted into the lead heading into Sunday after stewards took 40s off his overall time, judging that title contender Oliver Solberg held up the Citroen driver in stage 11.

Solberg, who could have sealed the title had he won the class, lost the lead after suffering a puncture which dropped the Swede to fourth in WRC2, behind Nikolay Gryazin and Gus Greensmith.

Paraguay’s Diego Dominguez clinched the WRC3 title after winning the class.