Motorracing-Toyota’s Rovanpera wins comfortable Rally Sweden
Finland’s Kalle Rovanpera took the overall world championship lead with a dominant win in Rally Sweden on Sunday. The Toyota driver finished 22 seconds ahead of Hyundai rival Thierry Neuville, who inherited second place after Rovanpera’s Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans crashed into a snowdrift on Sunday morning as he tried to compensate for a 10-second penalty.
Esapekka Lappi, also in Toyota, finished third. “I did not think we could be this good, especially when we first started on the road on Friday,” said Rovanpera, after the win that gave him 14 points ahead of Belgian Neuville after two of the season’s 13 rounds.
“It was a pretty big job but the team did a great job too and the car was great all the time. I feel so much more confident now.” The win was Rovanpera’s third in the World Rally Championship (WRC) and came 21 years after his father Harri took his only victory at the same race.
But the 21-year-old, who took six stage victories, said he was not in the mood to celebrate after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “I did not feel like celebrating too much now,” he said. “It has been a really difficult weekend for the people of Ukraine and I really hope they have the strength and hope in these difficult times.”
The double podium moved Toyota to the lead of the manufacturers’ position, with the Japanese team 24 points ahead of Ford. The next round of the championship is in Croatia on April 21-24.
(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)