Kalle Rovanperä secured his second consecutive title in the World Rally Championship (WRC) on Sunday. Second place was enough in the Central Europe Rally, where Thierry Neuville was the big winner.
In the Power Stage that closed the event on the Passauer Land stage, Elfyn Evans (Toyota) set the pace to salvage five points after yesterday’s retirement in SS 11. He beat Neuville (Hyundai) by 3.5s, with the Belgian securing the final victory. His main pursuer was Rovanperä (Toyota), who took no risks and finished eighth in SS 18. Sébastien Ogier (Toyota), Takamoto Katsuta (Toyota), and Ott Tänak (M-Sport Ford) also scored points in the Power Stage.
At the end of the rally, Neuville was the winner 57.6s ahead of Rovanperä. It was more than enough for the Finn to become champion: Evans would have to finish in the top three of the Power Stage and hope that his teammate did not score in the rally to stay mathematically in the fight. Tänak returned to the podium with third place, with Ogier in fourth and Katsuta in fifth.
Andreas Mikkelsen (Skoda) finished as the fastest in SS 18 in WRC2, but it was Nicolas Ciamin (Skoda) who sealed the class victory with the third fastest time in the stage. He finished 32.7s ahead of Erik Cais (Skoda), with Kajetan Kajetanowicz (Skoda) in third. The podium also corresponds to the WRC2 Challenger.
Filip Kohn reached the finish of WRC3 without any problems to secure the victory, which was already practically guaranteed after the retirements and Super Rally returns of the other two drivers in the category: Fabio Schwarz and Martin Ravenščak.
The rally summary
In a rainy week in central Europe, the penultimate round of the WRC began with two super specials in the Czech Republic on Thursday. Ott Tänak (M-Sport Ford) was the initial leader, but in SS 2 Neuville imposed himself to take the lead. The Belgian held onto it at the start of Friday, another day spent in the Czech Republic.
However, in SS 4 he was overtaken by Rovanperä, who was looking to seal the title here. The Finn dominated the morning of the second day and extended his lead to over half a second during the afternoon by winning another stage. Neuville ended Friday as his main pursuer, after overtaking Evans again.
The British driver set the fastest time in SS 10 on Saturday – a day spent mostly in Austria – once again closing the gap to Rovanperä in the next stage… as did Neuville. The Finn, on the other hand, lost time by making a mistake in a hairpin turn.
SS 11 was decisive for the outcome. Neuville was the fastest and took the lead in the overall standings. Rovanperä slowed down and played it safe after seeing Evans go off the road – the title was within reach, just needing to finish in the points without taking too many risks.
Ogier was a standout figure yesterday afternoon with two victories in three stages, but nothing brought significant changes to the overall – not even Tänak’s off-road in SS 14. Neuville finished the day 26.2s ahead of Rovanperä.
Sunday reserved four more stages: two in Austria and two in Germany. While Neuville continued to have a trouble-free performance, Rovanperä played it safe knowing that he had the title in his hands, so the gap between them grew until the Belgian won with a 57.6s lead. Tänak still saw Ogier closing in, but secured the lowest spot on the podium with some ease. Katsuta finished fifth and the Rally1 group that completed the whole event was completed by Teemu Suninen (Hyundai) in sixth and Grégoire Munster (M-Sport Ford) in seventh.
In WRC2, the leaders from the first day, Andreas Mikkelsen (Skoda) and Yohan Rossel (Citroën), fell behind early on Friday: the Frenchman had an incident right in SS 3, while the Norwegian damaged the suspension of his car in the following stage. From then on, Emil Lindholm (Skoda) consolidated his lead, controlling his pace despite rarely finishing at the top of the stages. Ciamin was his main pursuer from SS 10, also leading in the WRC2 Challenger ahead of Cais – a category in which Gryazin also managed to be in the fight, despite falling behind with a puncture in SS 3. The Russian reached the end of the line with problems in SS 14.
An alternator problem in the car took Lindholm out of the rally and the lead in the 15th stage. From there until the end, the fight for the WRC2 and WRC2 Challenger victories were the same, with Ciamin managing to maintain a relatively comfortable lead over Cais to win. Kajetanowicz completed the podium in both classes after a rally with many ups and downs.
WRC3 didn’t have much of a story. Schwarz led in the beginning and was even the strongest on Sunday, but on Friday Kohn took control of the operations. The German retired twice, while Ravenščak also dropped out of contention in SS 3, making Kohn’s task relatively simple: not to take risks and finish without any setbacks.
Final top ten:
