Kalle Rovanpera feels relief for being the winner of Rally de Portugal this weekend as there has been a long time since the last time he won a WRC round and believes that a clean weekend and a good drive are the keys to success.
The reigning WRC Champion claimed his first victory of the season in Portugal as the last time when he won a WRC event was at Rally New Zealand last October. Despite the fact that he was not feeling comfortable with his Yaris on Friday morning as he mentioned understeer and had to change the set-up, he managed to take the lead of Rally Portugal after Stage 5 and he did not drop from this place since then. Moreover, Dani Sordo was the only WRC driver who stopped Rovanpera's dominance on Saturday as the last one won five from seven stages yesterday. After the end of the fifth WRC round, Rovanpera is the new championship leader with 98 points after his having scored the maximum points this weekend.
"This win has been a long time coming", Rovanpera said.
"There have been some difficult weekends but all the time I knew that when we can have a clean weekend and a good drive, we are right in the game.
"It’s nice to win here in Portugal again and to finally be back on the top.
"A big thanks to Jonne and to the team, who have been pushing forwards all the time.
"This weekend we had a good feeling with the car and we were able to push hard.
"In the Power Stage I wanted to take as many points as we could because I knew we would likely have to open the road on the next event anyway.
"It was not a perfect stage but it was enough, so I’m happy.
"Sardinia will be more difficult but we will definitely try to continue like this".
Photo Credits: Toyota
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