Kalle Rovanpera says that Toyota is going in the right direction in terms of Yaris development on rough gravel rallies after their recent test for Rally Mexico and is being happy that he will not start first on the road there.
The Japanese team is generally struggling on rough gravel rallies, such as Sardinia, and this can be proved by the fact that they have won only one time on the Italian island since 2016. More specifically, Sebastien Ogier managed to claim the first victory of Toyota in Sardinia since the team rejoined World Rally Championship, but this win came after Ott Tanak and Dani Sordo were forced to retire on Saturday due to suspension damage.
Rally Mexico will host the first gravel round of this year's championship and will be held on March 16-19. Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT will compete with four cars there as Sebastien Ogier will drive the third Yaris while Takamoto Katsuta will not score any points for his team.
"I think the guys have been working quite hard on this kind of gravel", Rovanpera said.
"We were not on the pace on this kind of rough gravel conditions and everybody has been doing a lot of work to improve the car, and it has been nice to see already that the car is definitely better in these kind of conditions.
"We are still working hard to try to dine all the things we can, but we are definitely going in the right direction.
"I think in Mexico it is important to even get this one starting place back on the road order.
"It is definitely one of the toughest events on the calendar to clean the roads so I’m definitely quite happy to be starting second on the road.
"It is still going to be a tough job to compare to the guys that start behind but we will try our best.
"The beginning of the season has not been the easiest but it has bene good we have got good points.
"I think in Sweden we could have been better but the target on the test was to make the car better and hopefully we can be on the pace for the full weekend in Mexico and fight for the real good positions".
Source: Motorsport.com
Photo Credits: Toyota
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