The team principal of Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT, Jari-Matti Latvala, says that his team will not give up and their goal is to win the final three rounds of the championship while he reflects on his ambitions for Rally Chile.
The Japanese team lost even more ground to the championship leader Hyundai at the end of Acropolis Rally as their gap is now at 35 points with three rounds remaining until the season finale in Japan. Rally Finland and Rally Greece were disastrous events for Toyota as Kalle Rovanpera crashed on the penultimate stage of his home event resulting in breaking the 1-2 for Toyota whereas Thierry Neuville, Dani Sordo and Ott Tanak did the 1-2-3 for Hyundai earlier this month taking advantage over Elfyn Evans's, Takamoto Katsuta's and Sebastien Ogier's problems at Acropolis Rally. Toyota confirmed Ogier, Evans and Rovanpera as their nominated drivers for Rally Chile while Katsuta decided to skip this event, but Sami Pajari will take his place and will drive the fourth Yaris Rally1 making his second outing of the season at the top level. Finally, Esapekka Lappi will team up with Thierry Neuville and Ott Tanak for the upcoming WRC round and their goal is to increase Hyundai's lead further as the last two finished at the podium positions in Chile a year ago.
"The last two rallies have not gone our way in terms of our championship ambitions, but we will not give up the fight", Latvala said.
"We will keep pushing and focus on winning the last three rounds of the season and doing everything that we can to keep the pressure on.
"Our team is really motivated to do a good result in Chile and with Elfyn, Seb and Kalle we have a very strong driver line-up to fight for the win.
"The stages there are generally fast and flowing, which should suit our drivers and our car.
"The one thing we discovered last year is that the tyre wear can be quite high when it’s dry so we need to pay attention to that.
"For Sami, this is a chance to build on Finland where he did extremely well, and to see how he feels with the Rally1 car on different terrain and build up his experience.
"And if everything goes well, those roads could suit him well and we could see another strong performance".
Photo Credits: Toyota
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