Rovanperä drove superbly all day, building a crushing 42.5-second lead over his teammate Sebastien Ogier, who is in second place.
At the same time, Rovanperä won the so-called long competition and secured the maximum possible conditional points from Latvia.
“Of course, I have to be satisfied, as this was exactly what we came here for. We got really good points for the team now, with Seb also in second place,” Rovanperä said.
Rovanperä and Ogier are not competing in the full series this season, so the goal is to collect as many points as possible for the team. In that respect, Rovanperä’s Saturday was a perfect hit, as has been the entire rally so far.
“Everything has worked well. So far, it has gone really well,” Rovanperä rejoiced.
There is still a large points haul available on Sunday. Ogier has been seen to play it safe on Sundays this season, but Rovanperä does not intend to lift his foot off the gas on Sunday either.
“We’ll try to drive as fast as possible, as there are still quite a lot of points up for grabs tomorrow,” Rovanperä stressed firmly.
Rovanperä also commented on the day’s hot topic. The 14th special stage of the rally had a lot of drama when Hyundai’s Ott Tänak collided with an advertising banner and had to stop on the special stage. The banner came from an advertising arch that had been hit by Toyota’s Elfyn Evans. Arch-shaped advertising poles are common throughout special stages and are well known from other rallies as well.
“They are not the best solution, as they are not marked on the road maps at all,” Rovanperä said bluntly.
“We hit one last year on the shakedown of the Rally Finland and lost our rear wing. We can’t know where they are, so we can’t put them in our pace notes. Now it was hit by accident, but sometimes they have been placed in the wrong spots,” Rovanperä continued his criticism.
