Rovanperä and Halttunen were firmly in the lead of their home rally before the last two special stages. However, a loose stone on the road ended the Finnish duo’s charge: their Toyota struck the stone in a corner and crashed into the forest.
Hyundai driver Lappi is the last Finnish driver to win the Rally Finland. Rovanperä has been expected to secure a victory in Jyväskylä for several years now, but once again, it was not to be.
Lappi and his co-driver Janne Ferm learned about Rovanperä’s retirement before the final stage. The mood in their car changed immediately.
“Janne let out quite a few curses. We received a video clip on our phone and started watching it. We saw Kalle’s car go off. The swearing began right away,” recounted Lappi, who won the Rally Finland in 2017.
“I had a very physical reaction to it,” the Finnish driver added.
Lappi’s rally did not go as planned either. He had to retire on Friday after crashing into a tree but was able to rejoin the competition on Saturday.
On Sunday morning, it seemed that Toyota was set to secure excellent points from their home event and take the lead in the manufacturers’ championship. But things turned out differently. Toyota’s Elfyn Evans also crashed on the same stage as Rovanperä.
As a result, Hyundai collected 19 more points than Toyota in Jyväskylä, despite Lappi having retired once and Ott Tänak having retired completely on Friday.
“If you think about where we were on Sunday morning – in a way, this had been a complete disaster rally for us, but then when two Toyotas went out, suddenly we got 19 points more.”
“This really highlights the importance of Sunday. Now we saw that Sundays are really crucial. Our team has been strong on Sundays in previous rallies as well. This time it wasn’t perhaps our strength but the others’ weaknesses or bad luck. But according to this points system, Sunday is really tough,” Lappi summarised.
