Rovanperä went off the road on Saturday afternoon during the tricky Greek WRC round and was briefly stuck on a slope. Although he eventually made it back onto the road with the help of spectators, he was soon forced to stop his Toyota by the roadside and retire due to damage sustained by the car.
“On the first stage of the loop, we went a bit wide under braking and got stuck there for a moment. When we got going again, the car was broken. I don’t know if the driveshaft broke during that braking, because for some reason, I couldn’t get the car to stop,” Rovanperä explained to RallyJournal.com.
However, Rovanperä didn’t blame the retirement solely on a mechanical failure.
“I probably just braked a bit too late into that spot and couldn’t get the car stopped. The car didn’t hit anything when we went wide, but I don’t know exactly when the driveshaft broke. I suspect it was during that same braking, and then we just couldn’t get the car fixed.”
After retiring, Rovanperä and co-driver Jonne Halttunen had to wait in the middle of the forest for hours before getting a ride back to the Lamia service park. The pair finally made it out of the woods later that evening.
“We sat there in the dust for three hours, so it wasn’t exactly ideal,” Rovanperä remarked.
His rally had already been troublesome even before Saturday’s retirement from eighth place. The Toyota star suffered a puncture on Friday and, in general, was unable to match the pace of the leaders.
The retirement capped off a weekend filled with frustration for the Finnish ace.
“Of course, it’s a big disappointment, but at least there weren’t too many points at stake. So in that sense it’s not such a disappointment, but something like this is always disappointing,” Rovanperä reflected.
Rovanperä still has a chance to score points on Super Sunday, where stage results and the Power Stage will award additional points. However, his prospects are limited, as he’ll be one of the first drivers on the road.
“Day points might be hard to get due to our road position, but we’ll try to take something from the Power Stage.”
