A puncture the following morning slashed that advantage and put 2019 champion Tänak within range, the Estonian closing to 13 seconds. But Tänak was honest about his form in the Hyundai, much improved since its difficult debut asphalt rally in Monte Carlo back in January: he didn’t really feel capable of matching Rovanperä’s GR Yaris Rally1 on the same tyres and in the more benign conditions that welcomed the crews to the second day’s final stage. Sure enough, Rovanperä blitzed that one to stretch his lead to near 20 seconds.
Just four stages to go, on Sunday morning. Rovanperä surely had this one covered – until Toyota failed to predict the heavy rain that turned the penultimate stage into a slithering survival run. Rovanperä had headed out for the final leg with four hard-compound Pirellis and a couple of wet-weather spares as insurance; but Hyundai gambled, giving Tänak four softs and his own rain-tyre reserves. That was fine for Kalle over the first two runs as his lead stretched to 28.4sec. But when they got back to Trakošćan – Vrbno for a second pass, the rally gods did their worst: even with his two wet-weather spares fitted, the mix with the hard rubber just didn’t work for Rovanperä, as Tänak suddenly began to fly on his combo of soft slicks and treaded Pirellis.
In just eight miles, Kalle’s 28.4sec lead became a 1.4sec deficit, with just the similar-length Power Stage to run. He’d led every inch since Friday morning, and now this. How cruel.
Latvala and co thought the rally was lost at one point to Hyundai’s Ott Tänak
Nikos Katikis / DPPI
“At that point, we thought we had lost,” Latvala admitted. “The rain came and we knew it had also been raining on the Power Stage.” Had been, but not any longer. By the time the crews reached Zagorska Sela – Kumrovec for their second and final pass, the road was mostly dry. But mud and dirt thrown on from the many corner cuts still made any grip a bonus. Now back on hard Pirellis all round versus Tänak’s four softs, Latvala, his engineers, plus Rovanperä and co-driver Jonne Halttunen themselves, prepared for the worst.
“We were looking at the first WRC2 cars on the stage and there was quite a lot of mud on the road,” said Latvala. “We knew that Ott has better tyres for the conditions. Basically I started to calculate how many points we were going to lose to Hyundai. But eventually I threw the paper away thinking this was a waste of time, it’s nonsense to do it. Lucky I did it.
