Rovanperä is fifth in the Rally Saudi Arabia before Saturday’s final three special stages. Both of his team-mates ahead of him in the title fight, Elfyn Evans and Sébastien Ogier, are behind him on the road, but with the current result Rovanperä has no chance of the championship.
Rovanperä already got a taste of Saudi Arabia’s perhaps overly harsh conditions on Thursday, but on Friday almost every driver had their own issues in the form of punctures. Rovanperä criticised the FIA and the WRC Promoter harshly for how the World Rally Championship calendar has been constructed.
“It really has been a very tough rally. Maybe not quite as bad as I expected, but then suddenly everyone started having all kinds of things. I expected others to have problems earlier. Today was quite a battle as well. These are not the conditions in which season should be finished,” Rovanperä lamented.
There was a shocking number of punctures on Friday in Saudi Arabia, and plenty already on Thursday. Rovanperä will step away from the WRC after this season and turn his attention to Formula racing. The double champion is unlikely to miss Saudi Arabia.
“This isn’t about driving or about who is fighting or who is the fastest driver. It’s been like this the whole rally. No one knows what’s going to happen here,” Rovanperä summed up.
“This rally isn’t for these cars and tyres. That’s clear. Everyone has had at least one puncture, and most drivers have had several. I don’t really think this is the idea of rallying. It would be much nicer to see a proper fight and to see the positions to do by driving and not by who has a puncture and who not.”
Whatever the situation, Rovanperä promised to fight for the title until the end.
“Tomorrow the plan is the same. We just have to push. We should also have a better road position, so we’ll see how we can benefit from that. It’s not in our hands, and something big would have to happen for us to score more points than the others. But we’ve got nothing to lose.”
