Kalle Rovanpera is being disappointed with the crash in Stage 19 of Rally Finland considering the performance he had all the weekend and believes that there was no way to avoid the rock.
The Finn driver was leading his home event since the end of Stage 3 and started to extend further his rally lead since the end of Stage 11 which was the opening stage of Saturday. He took advantage over Elfyn Evans's transmission issues in Stage 12 as he was one of his closest rivals while he set the fastest time in eleven stages until his retirement. He started the penultimate stage of the rally with almost a 46-second gap over his teammate Sebastien Ogier, but Rovanpera rolled his Yaris in Stage 19 when he clipped a rock which was in the racing line. As consequence of that, he was not able to continue and to claim his first ever win of his home event while Esapekka Lappi remains the latest Finn driver who won Rally Finland with his victory back in 2017. Last but not least, Toyota finished Rally Finland with only one nominated driver, as Takamoto Katsuta was not able to score points for the manufacturers' championship, and now is twenty points behind the first Hyundai while it must be mentioned that the Japanese team was only one point behind Hyundai before the start of Rally Finland.
"We had a really good morning with everything under control and still fighting for Sunday points without taking any risks", Rovanpera said.
"On pretty much the last corner of the penultimate stage we were driving normally with a steady pace but in the middle of the corner, there was a huge loose stone which I could not avoid and it threw us off the road.
"It’s quite an unreal feeling, considering there was nothing we could have done to change the situation.
"It’s quite tough to take but on the other hand, Jonne and I executed a perfect weekend until that point and couldn’t really have done anything differently".
Photo Credits: Toyota
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