Rally Latvia presents new challenge for full-strength Toyota Gazoo Racing
Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team are preparing to take on a new challenge at Rally Latvia this week (18-21 July), searching for victory with a full four-strong driver line-up.
This will be Latvia’s debut in the FIA World Rally Championship, taking over the place in the schedule held in recent seasons by neighbouring country Estonia. Based on Rally Liepāja, a round of the FIA European Rally Championship, the event will be run on fast gravel roads similar to those found in Estonia, but is sure to provide its own particular challenges for the drivers, most of whom have not competed there before.
One driver arriving with previous experience in Latvia will be reigning world champion Kalle Rovanperä, who began his rally career in the country as a teenager, winning the national championship in 2016 and 2017. Fresh from their remarkable victory at Rally Poland following a late call-up, Rovanperä and co-driver Jonne Halttunen will be making their 50th start with TGR-WRT since stepping up to the top level with the team in 2020.
Sébastien Ogier and Vincent Landais are set to make a welcome return to action in Latvia, after they were forced to miss Rally Poland following an accident during reconnaissance. It will be the first time Ogier has competed in Latvia, as it will be for teammate Elfyn Evans. Their respective co-drivers have taken part in Rally Liepāja previously – Scott Martin tasting victory alongside the late Craig Breen in 2015 – but only when it ran as a winter rally on snow and ice. Evans and Martin will be looking to build on a strong second place finish in Poland which saw them close to within 15 points of the championship lead.
While Evans, Rovanperä and Ogier will push to close the 10-point gap to lead of the manufacturers’ championship, Takamoto Katsuta will also be targeting a strong result upon his return to Latvia for the first time since 2015, when he contested just his third rally in Europe there as part of the TGR WRC Challenge Program.
There are five GR Yaris Rally2 cars entered in WRC2 in Latvia. Ahead of his Rally1 debut with TGR-WRT at next month’s Rally Finland, Sami Pajari has the chance to claim the championship lead after back-to-back class wins in Sardinia and Poland in his Printsport-run car. He’s joined in action by fellow Finn Mikko Heikkilä (TGS), Estonia’s Gregor Jeets (RedGrey) and two drivers making their first start in a GR Yaris Rally2: Rakan Al-Rashed (Printsport) of Saudi Arabia and Canadian Brandon Semenuk (Sports Racing Technologies), a double American national champion.
While the service park is located in the southern coastal city of Liepāja, the capital city Riga will host the start of the rally on Thursday evening, with an opening super special stage taking place at the nearby Biķernieki circuit complex. Friday’s route is the longest of the rally with 75 competitive miles and takes the crews north-west from Riga with no midday service, just tyre-fitting zones before the morning and afternoon loops. Some of the stages are run just once, as is the case also on Saturday, where the action runs closer to Liepāja and is separated by midday service. A pair of stages run twice rounds out the event on Sunday.
Team quotes
Jari-Matti Latvala (Team Principal): “Latvia is new to the WRC but we can expect similar demands to Rally Poland, with fast and flowing stages and a sandy surface. The roads are maybe even wider and faster. The biggest challenge is that many of the stages will be driven only once, which is quite rare these days. That means there will be a lot of work for the crews with new pacenotes to be written. When it’s a new event with new roads it’s always a great challenge. We hope to pick up where we left off in Poland, where the performance was great. Kalle’s victory was fantastic and Elfyn was driving consistently fast. Hopefully Taka can find an improved feeling in Latvia and it will be great to also have Seb back with us. The championship is so tight this year, it’s difficult to make any difference, so it’s important to have our full-strength line-up for this new challenge and keep up the fight.”
Kalle Rovanperä (driver car 69): “I’m really looking forward to go back to Latvia. I have so many good memories from my early days there and I hope to see many friends and familiar faces. It will be a fast rally: a bit of a mix between Poland and Estonia in terms of character. I’m sure it will be spectacular to watch and a big fight on the stages. It’s been seven years since I last drove in Latvia, so I don’t think that experience will count for much and I will be preparing for it like any new rally. Poland went well even in the strange circumstances we had and I hope we can carry on the good feeling, and that with better preparation we can do a good job.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33): “I’m looking forward to seeing what Rally Latvia is all about. On paper it could be quite similar in character to Rally Poland as another fast gravel event, but I’m sure that it will have its own specific challenges and we have to discover those and see the stages for ourselves when we get there. We had a pretty good feeling with the car in Poland and we hope to be able to carry that forward and build on what we learned that weekend. Hopefully we can continue our good momentum in the championship, enjoy the event and come away with some good points at the finish.”
Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17): “It was quite unfortunate what happened during our preparations in Poland. Now after some rest and help from my medical team, I have recovered quickly and am looking forward to being back in a rally car in Latvia. The challenge of a new rally is something I like and that’s one of the reasons we added this event to my programme. The target will be to find the feeling for the very high-speed roads quickly after missing Poland, but I’m always excited for a new challenge and let’s see what we can do.”
Takamoto Katsuta (Driver car 18): “It’s going to be nice to go back to Latvia. My main memory from my last rally there is of probably the biggest crash of my career. It was one of my first rallies in Europe, so it was a long time ago and it will be a completely different story now. It’s going to be a totally new rally for most of the drivers, including me, and I want to set a high target for the weekend. It will be a similarly fast rally to Poland and I want to take the positives from there onto Latvia. We need to prepare as well as we can and I’ve been looking at everything together with the team to improve and be better there.”
ENDS
