In addition to the overall victory, Rovanperä also performed well on Sunday and collected a total of 31 World Championship points from Central Europe.
At the same time, Rovanperä significantly improved his position in the title fight. Rovanperä and Ogier now both have 234 points, while their teammate Elfyn Evans, the championship leader, is 13 points ahead.
Rovanperä has performed excellently on asphalt this season. He dominated in the Canary Islands in the spring and now secured another impressive victory in Central Europe. The WRC season continues on asphalt at the beginning of November, with Toyota’s second home rally in Japan up next.
“Of course, it’s a good thing that we’ve already taken two wins on asphalt. The feeling in the car has been quite good all the time,” summed up Rovanperä’s co-driver Jonne Halttunen.
“The starting position affected things a bit here. We started third on the road, and it wasn’t very easy to fight. Now we’ve been the last car, and the road has become dirty, so it’s been quite challenging. Even today it was really hard to challenge, for example, Seb (Ogier) — almost impossible — but otherwise, things went as planned, even though we couldn’t challenge Elfyn and Seb today,” Halttunen continued.
Overall, the Central European Rally provided hope for Rovanperä and Halttunen also with Japan in mind.
“But the feeling is good, and we have to continue in the same way if we want to fight for the title,” Halttunen summarised.
The third world championship of Rovanperä and Halttunen’s career is now completely in their own hands.
“It’s entirely in our own hands. Every year, the drivers who fight for the title have something happen to them at least once during the season. Elfyn still has a clean record. We’ll see if he makes it through the whole year without any problems. But the situation is good,” said Halttunen.
The World Rally Championship continues in Japan at the beginning of November. Everyone will surely have the same plan there — to go flat out.
“Exactly the same as here. Of course, there’s only so much you can do on those roads, but if you can get through without mistakes, you’ll definitely be in a strong position. It was clear here that when it got dirtier, Kalle and Seb were clearly better than almost anyone else. Then again, on cleaner roads, Elfyn set pretty good times, as did Takamoto. Anything can happen there,” Halttunen predicted.
