Rally driving Kalle Rovanperä drove to win the Swedish World Rally Championship and reminded of the situation in Ukraine: “It doesn’t feel good to celebrate anyway”

Toyota driver Kalle Rovanperä has won the Swedish World Rally Championship. Rovanperä, who had the fastest pace in six special stages during the race, won by 22 seconds before second-placed Hyundai. Thierry Neuvillea.

Third, Toyota was also driven by the commanding Esapekka Laplandwho was 30.6 seconds behind his teammate.

The victory was Rovanperä’s third career and the first of this season, and at the same time it raised the Finnish driver to the top of the World Rally Championship.

Rovanperä comments on the profit on his Twitter account, referring to the situation in Ukraine.

“It doesn’t feel good to celebrate more. The weekend has been very difficult for the Ukrainians and I wish them strength and power, ”Rovanperä wrote.

Suomalaiskuski got on the route as the first car on Friday, but even so, he downright dominated the race.

“In a way, the victory came as surprisingly easy. Sure, I had to push it all the time, but it was in my glove and the car sat in my hand. That’s when driving comes with its own weight, ”Rovanperä summed up.

“We and the team have developed the car in the right direction. So to speak, the result was good and the weather was favorable for the starting point. ”

The father of a young man Harri Rovanperä celebrated the victory of the same rally 21 years ago. Rovanperät is now the first father-son pair to have reached that trick.

“It’s just cool. Now we have won the same race. Fortunately, I was not the only one with a couple of victories below, ”Rovanperä acknowledged with a grin to his father, who was the only one in Sweden in 2001.

Last Esapekka Lappi, who was on the sidelines of the World Cup series during the season, showed that the skills are still there. Third place in the debut of the new Rally1 hybrid car was a hard work.

“I am really pleased. Of course, more was available today and yesterday. I tried to race against Neuville, but I just didn’t keep my fingernails, ”said Lapland.

“Perhaps the last risk-taking ability was exhausted. I did not dare to take it and it would not have made sense in this situation. I hope to be able to stretch in the future, but this time it was not possible. ”

Lapland referred to his role as the team’s third driver to share the car Sebastien Ogierin with this season. Third place scores were very important to the team. Direct request to the team manager Jari-Matti from Latvala however, did not come.

“Perhana, at this age, there are already so many shakers that I could infer the situation. I didn’t see any point in going to squeeze in the last snippet. There was a risk that it would go into the project if it raged too much, ”Lapland laughed.

Also smaller classes saw success in Swedish snow. Jari Huttunen reached the helm of Ford third in the WRC2 class. Lauri Joona in turn, it narrowly finished second in the JWRC class.

The World Rally Championship will continue in less than two months. As last year, Rovanperä will go to the Croatian asphalt rally to lead the World Championship series. There is a difference of 14 points.