Kalle Rovanpera says posting a fast time on the World Rally Championship’s famous Ouninpohja stage to mirror his father Harri Rovanpera was the motivation behind his stunning effort.
The two-time world champion dominated Saturday at Rally Finland, winning five of the day’s six stages to open up a 44.2s lead over Toyota team-mate Sebastien Ogier with four Sunday stages remaining.
Rovanpera’s impressive surge towards a possible first Rally Finland win was aided by two stage wins on the revered 32.98km Ouninpohja test, which has returned to the itinerary for the first time since 2016.
Rovanpera was fastest through the first pass, held in tricky damp conditions by 0.1s from Ogier, before blitzing that time on the second pass in dry conditions at an average speed of 136 km/h.
The 23-year-old set a 14m32.6s effort, which was 23.9s faster than the stage record set by Kris Meeke in 2016, albeit this year’s stage is run in the opposite direction and with hybrid power.
His father’s WRC times on Ouninpohja were part of the motivation for the push, according to Rovanpera.
“Of course it's cool [to win the Ouninpohja stage],” Rovanpera told Autosport.
“I remember [my dad] always talking that he made some really good times there, so of course, I needed to be also a bit fast so he is not the only fast one on Ouninpohja in the family!
“My engineer has already calculated that - of course they didn't have any chicanes [back in my father’s day], and I think it was two kilometres longer - if you take two kilometres out, the cars at that time were like 30 or 40 seconds slower than us now.
“It's quite interesting, they were like Rally2 speed now. The cars have been developing quite a lot from those times.”
Reflecting on his dominant performance, Rovanpera added that building a lead was at the forefront of his mind knowing that the smallest mistake or problem can be costly.
“The plan was to keep pushing today when the feeling is good, and when I saw and felt that I can do good times,” he said.
“Of course, then I always try to do some good times to have some margin, because you never know what happens.
“You can have some unlucky puncture or issues, whatever, so it's always good to have a bit of margin and tomorrow we try to finish the job.
“Tomorrow is going to be tricky day, especially if it is going to be quite an unusual Finland stage, so anything can happen. We will try to focus and keep it all steady.”
While Rovanpera enjoyed a near perfect day, his team-mate and title contender Elfyn Evans suffered a driveshaft failure that demoted him from being Rovanpera’s nearest rival to 12th overall.
The Welshman also incurred a 2m40s penalty for being 16 minutes late out of midday service.
“Obviously, it was a driveshaft issue, and the trouble is when that is broken it collects a lot of stuff in its path,” Evans told Autosport.
“There was a bit more damage than initially expected so it ended up being a big job
“To be honest, I saw the gap [was] unachievable to get some points in a way, plus we got caught in really bad rain.”
