Rovanperä set the fastest time on the morning’s first special stage, but then faced a strong challenge from Ford’s Martins Sesks, competing in his home rally. Rovanperä’s lead over the Latvian driver before the afternoon loop is 3.2 seconds.
“Quite okay. Our performance is not exactly what it could be. It’s not entirely optimal, which is what we always strive for,” Rovanperä said after the morning loop.
The Latvian WRC rally is very fast, but efforts have been made to control the speed with wooden cutting barriers. Rovanperä mentioned before the rally that the wooden barriers make the stages feel artificial, but they managed to handle them quite well during the morning loop.
“We found a good rhythm for driving. Maybe on the long stage, the car understeered a bit when the tyres heated up, but otherwise, it went quite well,” Rovanperä recounted.
Rovanperä also gave credit to Martins Sesks. Sesks outpaced two world champions on the last two stages of the morning loop.
“The gap is small. Sesks has been driving really well, but that was expected after Poland. I’m not terribly surprised by it,” Rovanperä praised.
Rovanperä expects the afternoon loop to be challenging.
“It’s quite a difficult tyre choice for the afternoon loop. A couple of stages are driven again, and then there’s a completely clean road, so it’s not easy to choose tyres. There will probably be quite a bit of wear. Hopefully, we can find something that works,” Rovanperä anticipated.
In addition to tyre choice, the car’s settings will also be put to the test in the afternoon loop.
“There will certainly be enough work, but during this tyre service, we can’t do much to the car,” Rovanperä explained.
