“I never felt I needed to go crazy”
After taking the lead for the second time on Saturday morning, Toyota Gazoo Racing driver beat back teammate Elfyn Evans’ challenge on the windy highways in the Västerbotten region to secure his third win in the FIA World Rally Championship.
Before the start, several drivers predicted that this could be the fastest WRC event of all time. In the end, it only crept into the top 20 of all time with an average of 121.5 km / h and the 21-year-old Finn said he never felt he had to play to protect his lead.
Asked if he was at the border, Rovanperä said: “I would say I was in some places but surprisingly it was a pretty good pace all weekend. I did not have to stretch across the border, I did not feel at any point that I needed to do something crazy , so it was a bit of a surprise for me too.
Video: Rally Sweden review
“Otherwise, we always have small moments here and there where you are a little over the border. But all weekend we made no big mistakes and I’m really happy about that. ”
The rally was Sweden’s northernmost WRC meeting ever, where the move to Umeä secured the ideal snow and ice conditions that the organizers longed for at their previous location in Värmland.
The change took advantage of Rovanperä. “Of course it is always good that we had proper snow conditions for the winter rally so it was good that we get a little further north from the bottom. [Värmland],” he said.
“Overall really fast stages, some of them were a bit too fast in some sections maybe, but other than that I would say nice stages and a difficult rally.”