Lappi, at the wheel of a Škoda, had already taken victory at the Mikkeli Finnish Rally Championship round run earlier in January and repeated the feat in Rovaniemi at the weekend.
Lappi moved into the rally lead straight away on the opening stages on Friday and never relinquished his position. Victory was ultimately secured by a margin of 25.2 seconds over young star Tuukka Kauppinen. At the same time, Lappi took revenge on Kauppinen, who had been victorious at last season’s Arctic Lapland Rally.
“It went well. We just drove, but I eased off a bit towards the end. It felt like the tyre was starting to give up and the studs were folding over. The front end was no longer as responsive, so we backed off a little in the flat-out sections. A really good feeling on Enni’s (co-driver Mälkönen) behalf. She now gets the reindeer antlers she was missing, Lappi summed up in an interview with FlyingFinn.tv.
Kauppinen fought all the way to the finish for second place against Lauri Joona and Mikko Heikkilä. A strong run over the more than 30-kilometre Sarriojärvi final stage lifted Kauppinen into second, 7.3 seconds ahead of Joona.
“Now you can say it was all or nothing. There were plenty of moments and I couldn’t have gone any faster. An amazing feeling, because we achieved our targets. This is a good platform heading to Sweden. After a long break from driving, things kept improving all the time,” Kauppinen said.
“Good vibes. Apparently we lost quite a bit of time, even though we drove as hard as we could. I eased off unnecessarily in a few places because of dust. A really great rally and the roads were in excellent condition. We really enjoyed ourselves in the cockpit,” Joona in turn explained.
Heikkilä lost ten seconds already on Friday due to a false start. On the final stage, additional lighting problems meant he had to settle for fourth place in the SM1 class.
“This stage went well considering we didn’t have any lights. I went a bit wide a couple of times,” Heikkilä noted.
Roope Korhonen finished fifth in the SM1 class ahead of Estonians Jaspar Vaher and Patrick Enok. Toyota’s Japanese prospects Takumi Matsushita and Shotaro Goto completed the top ten.
Toyota WRC star Elfyn Evans tested on the Arctic Circle in preparation for the Sweden WRC round to be run in a few weeks’ time. Evans was, as expected, the fastest overall in a top-tier car, but the most important outcome was more than 220 SS kilometres.
“This was definitely a good event. We got good information for next week’s tests and the stages were fantastic as always. Expectations are always the same when we compete in a WRC rally. The goal is to win, but we’ll see how things develop,” Evans said.
The Finnish Rally Championship continues in Riihimäki at the end of February. The summer season will still feature a total of four rounds.
However, the seasons of Evans, Lappi and the entire Arctic Lapland Rally top ten continue already in a couple of weeks at the Sweden WRC winter rally. In Sweden, Lappi will once again take the wheel of a Rally1 car, as he competes for the first time this season in Hyundai machinery.
Arctic Lapland Rally results:
| POS. | Driver | Car | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Elfyn Evans | Toyota | 1:45:31.0 |
| 2. | Esapekka Lappi | Skoda | +3:56.3 |
| 3. | Tuukka Kauppinen | Toyota | +4:21.5 |
| 4. | Lauri Joona | Skoda | +4:28.8 |
| 5. | Mikko Heikkilä | Skoda | +4:32.7 |
| 6. | Roope Korhonen | Toyota | +4:59.0 |
| 7. | Jaspar Vaher | Toyota | +5:48.6 |
| 8. | Patrick Enok | Skoda | +7:02.1 |
| 9. | Takumi Matsushita | Toyota | +9:23.6 |
| 10. | Shotaro Goto | Toyota | +11:03.3 |
