Rovanperä is making his debut in the Porsche Carrera Cup Benelux this weekend, participating in the season’s second race weekend at Zandvoort, Netherlands. He plans to compete in four races in the series this season alongside his rally commitments.
Rovanperä impressed during Friday’s free practice sessions, clocking the third fastest time. The Finnish star further improved his time in Saturday morning’s qualifying session.
Rovanperä clocked his fastest lap at 1:36.387 at the Zandvoort circuit. He was poised for a front-row start for a long time, but ultimately, two drivers managed to edge ahead of him.
Rovanperä finished the qualifying session in fourth place, just 0.165 seconds behind pole-sitter Niels Langeveld. Paul Meijer and Dirk Schouten narrowly surpassed Rovanperä.
The Finnish driver will therefore start from the fourth grid position in his first Porsche Cup race. The first race at Zandvoort is scheduled for Saturday at 16:45 Central European Time.
The race duration is set for 30 minutes, after which one more lap will be driven before the finish.
Saturday’s qualifying session also determined the starting positions for Sunday’s race based on the drivers’ second-fastest laps. Rovanperä secured sixth place in this comparison.
Earlier, Rovanperä told RallyJournal.com that he anticipated qualifying might be challenging for him in the new series.
“I would think that I might have a better chance in race pace than in qualifying. Qualifying will certainly be more difficult, as you need to nail one lap, and it depends on so many factors. Even just preparing a new tyre when you only have two laps to do it requires experience,” Rovanperä mused.
Based on his performance in Saturday’s qualifying session, Rovanperä’s prediction proved entirely wrong.
