Kalle Rovanpera is on fire. After winning all the special stages this morning, he repeated his feat by winning Special Stage 14 of Rally Finland, the 18.94-kilometer Vastila 2 that opened the afternoon lap.
The conditions of the test were different from what we saw this morning because the rain returned after accompanying the crews throughout the day yesterday. This, however, did not prevent Rovanpera from winning the stage in 8’18″9.
It seems anachronistic to write it, but don’t pay too much attention to the – large – gaps inflicted by the Finn. No one, behind him, is trying to close the gap that separates him from the first position. On the contrary, everyone is trying to manage what has already been achieved in the previous tests.
And so Sébastien Ogier, second in the standings, signed the second time of the special but 6″7 from his teammate. Thierry Neuville, third in the general standings, suffered a 7″5 delay in the stage. No one really had the intention of pushing, with Saturday’s result already achieved.
Only Sami Pajari – who is making his debut with a Rally1 in the WRC – is trying to improve on what he did during the morning. And it is understandable: opportunities like this do not come every day and it is always good to show off.
Elfyn Evans deserves a separate chapter. The Welshman, due to a transmission failure during today’s second test, lost several minutes to the best. Toyota Gazoo Racing worked to repair the fault on his Yaris, but he still arrived 16 minutes late at Time Control. This meant he had to take note of a penalty of 2 minutes and 40 seconds that were added to his race time.
This had major implications, as Evans has now dropped out of the top 10 and sits 16th overall, two minutes off the points.
In WRC2, Oliver Solberg responded to the morning attacks launched by Jari-Matti Latvala, beating his rival for the victory by a few seconds. The Norwegian of the TokSport team now has a lead of 22.6 seconds over the Toyota team principal with two stages to go.
#WRC #Rally #Finland #SS14 #Rovanpera #flies #rain
