Rovanperä will drive a GT3 car for the first time, racing with the Proton Huber Competition team in a Porsche 911 GT3 R alongside four other drivers.
On Tuesday, Rovanperä was testing Toyota’s Rally1 car in the French Alps for the upcoming Rally Monte Carlo, but by Thursday, he had his first experience behind the wheel of the GT3 car. The Porsche offers more power and aerodynamic features than the car he drove last season in the Porsche Carrera Cup Benelux series.
“With the GT3 for sure you can feel that it’s quite a decent step – but on the straights, not really. I think the Cup cars with less downforce are almost faster on the straights. But for sure the ABS braking and more aero on the braking and corners makes a big difference,” Rovanperä told sportscar365.com.
“I think it was pretty okay to learn. Maybe the driving style is a bit different than the Cup car. So to change the driving style was maybe the biggest thing, but other than that I would say it was nothing special,” he added.
In the 24-hour qualifying session, Rovanperä’s team placed 18th in their class. Rovanperä drove during the third session after dark and set the 19th-fastest time, narrowly becoming his team’s quickest driver in qualifying.
The race begins Saturday and concludes Sunday after 24 hours of intense competition. For Rovanperä, the event is primarily a learning opportunity as he ventures into uncharted territory.
The Finnish driver has never participated in an endurance race before and lacks experience competing on a track with cars from multiple classes simultaneously.
“For sure this kind of race is super good for me to get a lot of lap time on the GT3 – which is definitely what I want to do more. I want to do some GT3 racing,” Rovanperä explained.
“So far when I’ve been doing a bit longer stints I’m pretty consistent on the lap times which is a good thing. Maybe not what you expect when I didn’t really have any experience. So that was a positive surprise,” the two-time world rally champion revealed.
Rovanperä aims to improve further during the race.
“I think if I can just be consistent and of course to try to stay out of trouble, learn how to pass the traffic, I think in 24 hours that’s one of the biggest things where you make time or lose time,” Rovanperä analysed.
