The Finn suffered an early setback when his Toyota picked up a puncture during the morning loop. It cost him around half a minute.
Another tyre went in the afternoon loop, but this time it had little effect on his situation.
“The puncture in the morning – we lost quite a lot of time with that and some starting positions for tomorrow, which is obviously not so good. As we have seen today, the roads are cleaning a lot, even more than I think we thought because even on the second pass it is cleaning all the time. So tomorrow will be tough also,” Rovanperä said.
Rovanperä currently holds eighth place overall. He is still theoretically in the title fight against his team-mates Elfyn Evans and Sébastien Ogier, but his prospects certainly did not improve on Thursday.
Ogier sits ahead of him in seventh place, while Evans is behind in ninth. One small positive for Rovanperä was that he managed to pass Evans on the final stage of the day – securing a slightly better road position for Friday.
“I think it will be quite important. By every car the road is getting a lot faster, so it’s better to be at least in front of him,” he noted.
Rovanperä had already made it clear before the event that he was not a fan of the new rally in Saudi Arabia. His opinion did not improve after the first day of running – in what is his last WRC event for the time being.
“The roads are not normal and not the most enjoyable style – too narrow and low speed and rough basically everywhere. So I’m not really enjoying it, just trying to see all the loose stones on the road and avoid them. This is not the real rallying we want to do,” he stated.
Rally Saudi Arabia continues on Friday with six special stages on the schedule.
