WRC | Rally Finland, SS13: Evans collapses, Rovanpera extends lead

Kalle Rovanpera is aiming to seal his third consecutive win of the season and made it clear in the morning lap of the second day of Rally Finland, where he won all three special stages on the programme.

The two-time world champion is looking to bounce back after missing out on a home win last year while firmly leading the event and today completed a perfect lap to also win Special Stage 13, the famous 32.98km Ouninpohja.

A desired, sought-after victory, but one that came by just 1 tenth of a second over Sébastien Ogier, teammate and first among his pursuers in the general rally standings.

Earlier this morning the gap between the two was 8.6sec in favour of Rovanpera. Kalle has now built a 21.9sec advantage over the eight-time world champion, who climbed to second in the previous stage after struggling with a transmission failure in the sister GR Yaris Rally1 driven by Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin.

Rovanpera has led the fight for the win, just as Ogier managed to do for second place. Thierry Neuville – after climbing into the podium zone thanks to the failure that slowed Evans – has decided to settle for the position and not take any more unnecessary risks. So now between Ogier and the Belgian from Hyundai Motorsport there are 36.4 seconds in favor of the Frenchman.

By now all the positions are defined, at least as far as Rally1 is concerned. Adrien Fourmaux is fourth at 28″1 from Neuville, just as Sami Pajari is sixth and half a minute from the Frenchman from M-Sport.

A transmission failure on the No. 33 GR Yaris Rally1 cost Evans a further four minutes, which saw him drop three places in the overall standings. He moved from fifth to eighth, overtaken by the top two cars battling for the WRC2 win.

It will be interesting to see whether Evans can mount a strong recovery in the afternoon should the team manage to fix the transmission failure during the mid-day service. The realistic aim should be to overtake Oliver Solberg’s Skoda Fabia RS and team principal Jari-Matti Latvala’s Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 again.

Worth noting is the puncture to the right front tire on Esapekka Lappi’s Hyundai i20 N Rally1. The Finn, back in the race after yesterday afternoon’s accident, landed in a ditch after a jump, ruining his tire in the process. Nothing serious, however, because the Finn has no hopes of moving up the standings, at least for today.

As for WRC2, Jari-Matti Latvala is making a comeback against Oliver Solberg, leader of the general classification of the category. The Norwegian continues to be ahead of everyone with a margin of 18 seconds clear of the Finn, but his margin is thinning out stage after stage. Third place for the Estonian Robert Virves, but more than half a minute behind Latvala.

Today’s morning lap at Rally Finland ends here. Drivers will now be able to take advantage of the mid-day Service to prepare their cars for the afternoon lap, which will be on the same three stages already contested this morning. The rally will restart with Special Stage 14, the 18.94-kilometer Vastila 2, with the first car entering the special at 14:35 Italian time.

WRC 2024 – Rally Finland – Standings after SS13