During the rally, a total of five different athletes were in the lead for some time. However, the new driver of the Toyota Gazoo Racing team took over the rally from the first stage of the race and protected it to the end with a steady fast performance.
Elfin Evans, a member of the Rovanpera British team who was in 2nd position before the final day of the rally, lost 8.3 seconds, made a mistake on Sunday morning and slipped into the snow and went out. The British could not continue the race due to the problems of the car’s hybrid technology, a similar situation happened to the Estonian Otta Tanak (“Hyundai Shell Mobis”) on the first day.
Evans’ failure was taken advantage of by the Belgian crew of Terry Neville / Martin Waidegi (“Hyundai Shell Mobis”), who were in third place at the time. Belgium climbed to 2nd place in the overall rally standings and kept it until the very end. In almost all of Sunday’s speed, Rovanpera was faster than Neville, so the rider of the Hyundai Shell Mobis team failed to break the bag’s lead.
Terrier Neville in the 2022 Sweden WRC psoma.
Photo: imago images / PanoramiC, Nikos Katikis via www.imago-images.de
Another Toyota Gazoo Racing team from Finland, Esapeka Lapi / Janni Ferms, finished in 3rd place. Although Lapi had not driven a Toyota car for three years, he kept pace with the top three throughout the rally and ended up in the top three.
As a result, Rovanpera climbed to the top of the podium in the Swedish WRC in 2022, surpassing second-place Neville by 22 seconds and his teammate and compatriot Lapi by 30.6 seconds.
Overall assessment of the 2022 Swedish WRC stage
Meanwhile, in the last stage of the rally, the so-called “Power stage”, the winner of which earns an additional 5 points in the overall standings of the championship, the fastest time was shown by the Estonian Tanaks. Rovanpera finished second in the Power Stage and earned four more points, Neville scored three points in the stage, while Japanese Takamoto Katsuta (Toyota Gazoo Racing) and Irish driver Craig Brin (M-Sport Ford) earned the final rally test. two and one point respectively.
It should be noted that this 21-year-old Rovanper had his third career victory at any stage of the WRC.
The Finnish rally driver has so far won two WRC rallies – the 2021 Estonian and Greek WRC stages. With a victory in Estonia last year, Rovanpera also became the youngest rally driver of all time, having triumphed in a WRC stage.
Rovanpera’s father Hari also once won the Swedish WRC rally. In 2001, when Kallem was just four months old, Hari won his first and only WRC career victory with a Peugeot.
With this victory, Kalle Rovanpera also took the lead in the overall standings of this WRC season.
Rovanpera is in first place with 46 points this year after two of the 13 rallies, Neville is in second place with 32 points, and Frenchman Sebastien Leb is in third place.
2022 WRC Season Overall
Highlight text and press Ctrl+Enterto send the snippet to the editor!
Highlight text and press Report an error buttons to send the text to be edited!
