Latvala participated in the Finnish Rally Championship Pohjanmaa rally with a historic Toyota Celica. The old car nearly made it to the finish, but troubles began after the sixth special stage. An electrical fault ruined Latvala’s race, forcing him to retire from sixth place in the overall competition.
“The rally went very well. I was happy with my driving. I had one stall, which cost about seven or eight seconds. Unfortunately, the car stopped charging at the finish of the sixth stage. The alternator light was blinking. I knew the battery would last about 40-50 kilometres, and I calculated that we could reach the service,” Latvala explained to RallyJournal.com
“We just made it to the service, but it stalled in the media area, so we had to push the car to the service. We changed the alternator and got power, but the new alternator didn’t start charging. I still don’t know what’s wrong with it. The fault might not be big, but finding it in the wiring harness could be difficult.”
Latvala’s co-driver in the rally around was Janne Ferm, who normally reads the notes for Esapekka Lappi in Hyundai’s team. Toyota’s team boss appreciated that representatives from two different teams were able to be in the same rally car.
“The great thing was that both teams, Hyundai and Toyota, were positive about it. Two men from different teams could be in the same car. It was great for promotion. This also shows the strength we have in rallying, that we can be friends,” Latvala said.
“There isn’t such strong competition where we’d only stick to our own teams like in circuit racing. There, you’re more enemies against each other. Friendship is important on the rally side.”
Latvala and Ferm are both quite talkative, so there was plenty of chatter in the cabin.
“Janne was immediately on board when I asked. We had fun already in the recce. It’s rare that you start laughing on long straights. A few things happened, and I made corrections. I’m quite keen on correcting the notes, so Janne commented on them a bit,” Latvala laughed.
