At the end of the final day of Rally de Portugal, Kalle Rovanpera takes his first victory of the season with Dani Sordo and Esapekka Lappi completing the podium.
Kalle Rovanpera claimed his first win of the season in Portugal and dominated in ten from 19 stages while he was the fastest driver in SS17 which was the first pass of Powerstage. He scored the maximum points on the fifth WRC round as he bet Tanak in Powerstage.
Dani Sordo finished for a seventh time in his career to Rally Portugal podium having 15 starts there.
Esapekka Lappi climbed to the lowest place of the podium after SS16 and this is his second podium finish in a row with Hyundai colors. Late problems hit Lappi's car as there was coming smoke from the engine and the Finn driver suggested a potential turbo issue.
Ott Tanak finished fourth overall and set the fastest time on the penultimate stage of the day despite the fact that he suffered from hybrid issues since SS16. Moreover, he scored four extra points in PS as he was the second fastest driver there.
Thierry Neuville dropped from third to fifth overall after the opening stage of Sunday as he may have a potential turbocharger issue in combination with a gearbox problem as his i20N did not engage any gears higher than third. In addition to that, he stated at the end of SS17 that he had no power and generally he was losing more than one minute in all stages today.
Pierre-Louis Loubet restarted today under the regulations of Rally2 after his retirement on Saturday morning and finished ahead of Takamoto Katsuta who was the quickest driver in SS16. Both of them are outside the top ten.
Gus Greensmith was the winner in WRC2 class after Oliver Solberg's one-minute time penalty earlier this morning for doing donuts in SS15.
Watch below the stage times:
Watch the overall classification after the end of Rally Portugal:
Photo Credits: Toyota
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