Rovanperä drove numerous test runs on Toyota’s WRC team’s private test roads in Finland. Between the runs, small adjustments were made to the car setup, and then Rovanperä was back on the gas on the fast gravel roads.
This season, Rovanperä has struggled to fully trust his car and Hankook tyres—especially on gravel rallies. He faced the same issue at last weekend’s Rally Estonia, where he finished fourth.
Thursday’s test was aimed at solving – or at least improving – a major area of concern.
“We’ve been able to try quite a lot today. We got a lot of data from Estonia, and now we’ve been able to test those things out. Of course, some components are shared between the Estonian and Finnish rallies, so we can’t test or swap out everything for the rally. But we’ve found a few new things, and that’s always positive,” Rovanperä told RallyJournal.com.
Despite a full day of testing, Rovanperä didn’t sound especially optimistic that major gains will be seen next week when he competes for points on home soil in Central Finland. RallyJournal.com asked if the test had given him a confidence boost compared to before Estonia.
“I wouldn’t really say that I’ve found anything like that,” Rovanperä said bluntly.
“But at least now we’re in a position to start developing in that direction. So we have a bit of a clearer idea of where we need to go,” he added.
Watch the video of Rovanperä’s test below!
Rovanperä has never won Rally Finland during his career. He came close last year, but a loose rock on the penultimate stage caused him to crash out while leading the rally.
Rally Finland kicks off next Thursday, 31 July.
