Participating in only selected World Championship rallies this year, Lappi was in great form on Thursday at the Swedish rally’s shakedown, where he clocked the fastest time of the entire field.
The Finnish driver for Hyundai has a strong starting position for the snow rally, as he will start from the eighth position for Friday’s special stages. WRC’s leading drivers will start the stages first, led by Thierry Neuville.
“Already in today’s shakedown, it was clear that Thierry had no chance when there was a couple of centimeters of fresh snow. The road cleans up so much, and it will be the same tomorrow. The roads are plowed a couple of hours before the stages, but if it snows in between, the starting position will definitely be an advantage,” Lappi thought.
“Kalle (Rovanperä) and I probably have the best spots. That’s pretty clear,” Lappi emphasized.
Last year, Lappi had a good preparation for the Rally Sweden, as he drove a national championship rally as a test race. This time, Lappi had to settle for a test on the team’s own test area in Central Finland.
“Last year at the ‘shakedown,’ there was a different feeling right away because I had driven a lot on previously unknown roads (in the test race). Then you knew exactly how the car behaves, so you could immediately floor it. Now, I had to look around a bit more.
“It probably didn’t help that our test was done on such a familiar road. The road had also been used. There are now challenges with the car, as it’s not as it should be. We’ll see if we come up with something.”
According to Lappi, he has about 85% confidence in his Hyundai i20 N Rally1 car before the start of the Rally Sweden.
“There were four, five corners in the ‘shakedown’ where I had to slow down significantly because the car didn’t behave as it should. I had to take off speed, and because of that, time was lost. There will be many such corners this weekend. We need to somehow get the car in shape,” Lappi said.
Among the Hyundai drivers, Neuville and the Estonian driver Ott Tänak are fighting for the championship this year, while Lappi’s task is to offer support to the team’s lead stars.
However, in Sweden, Lappi has good chances to fight for the top positions, while World Championship leader Neuville may suffer on Friday from his first starting position. Hyundai has not hidden at all that it is ready to use team orders to ensure its top drivers get as many points as possible in the championship fight.
The burning question is, does Lappi have permission to win?
“Yes, at least for now,” Lappi laughed.
“Our task is clear, but everyone is allowed to race. We’ll see later what the order is, and then think about these things.”
The Rally Sweden starts Thursday evening with a spectator stage in Umeå.
