The second round of the Finnish Rally Championship season gets underway on Friday. However, the drivers already got up to speed on Thursday, when the shakedown stage was held near Rovaniemi.
Lappi and co-driver Enni Mälkönen put in an unusually large amount of work with their Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 on the test stage. The winner of the season-opening FRC round drove the stage no fewer than four times.
“I didn’t do any testing at all after the Mikkeli Rally. The conditions are quite different here, so we needed to try various things – mostly small details, or maybe even slightly bigger ones,” Lappi explained.
Lappi is clearly leaving nothing to chance. And judging by his comments, he has full confidence in himself and his car.
“You don’t need many runs to find the feeling, but I wanted to try a few things. And we did find something better, so it certainly wasn’t wasted,” Lappi smiled.
Lappi’s sole target in the iconic Arctic Lapland Rally is victory. At the same time, he is also looking to build a strong feeling ahead of Rally Sweden, which takes place in a couple of weeks, where he will be aiming for top results in a Hyundai Rally1 car.
At the Arctic Circle, Lappi will face some strong benchmarks, including last year’s winner Tuukka Kauppinen, Mikko Heikkilä, Roope Korhonen and Lauri Joona.
The line-up is, in a word, strong.
“It’s really great for everyone – both the spectators and us competitors. We’re sure to get a proper fight when the field is this strong. This is why we do it: to provide entertainment for the fans, and there’s nothing better than a tight battle,” Lappi underlined.
This will be Lappi’s fifth start at the Arctic Lapland Rally. And judging by the conditions, the magic of Lapland will also be felt inside the cockpit.
“This will probably be the finest Arctic Lapland Rally in terms of road conditions and how wide the roads have been ploughed. These are what you’d call flying conditions. It’s going to be very enjoyable. Let’s just hope we stay between the snowbanks,” Lappi said.
