Rovanpera: Losing out to Ogier in Kenya was 'not the best feeling'

World Rally Championship leader Kalle Rovanpera has admitted to having mixed emotions after losing out to his Toyota team-mate Sebastien Ogier at the latest rounds of the FIA World Rally Championship.

Jason Craig_1

06 Jul 2023

22-year-old Rovanpera produced another wise-head-on-young-shoulders display at Safari Rally Kenya - arguably one of the most unforgiving rounds on the calendar - to finish just 6.7 seconds behind the Frenchman.

Despite narrowly missing out on the victory, Rovanpera still succeeded in adding to his lead in the standings, which currently sits at 16 points. After seven events, his advantage over the third Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 of Elfyn Evans stands at forty-one points, with Ogier and M-Sport Ford’s Ott Tanak one point further behind.

Rovanpera also extended his run of podium finishes, adding Kenya to his victory at May’s Rally de Portugal and third place at Rally Italia Sardegna at the start of June. Yet despite all of this, he sounded moderately sanguine in his post-rally comments.

“It was a good weekend and we went according to our plan let’s say. It was quite a good and steady pace the whole weekend,” reflected the reigning World Champion.

“We didn’t really take any crazy risks and I didn’t have any punctures or any issues with the car to be honest, so the plan was to be quick, and of course like always you need to keep the pressure on if there is someone in front or behind, so that was the plan to keep the pressure on a bit and see what happens.

“The battle with Seb got quite tight at the end, and when you miss out on the win by a small margin like this then it’s not always the best feeling for a driver.

“But at the end we still scored good points for the Championship. I stuck to my plan for the whole weekend, driving with quite good pace but not taking huge risks. So, to still finish like this is quite nice.”

He added: “The final day was really tough for the cars: the penultimate stage especially with a lot of deep sand and ruts. It’s good that our cars were so strong and made it through, because to have the 1-2-3-4 finish for the team again here in Kenya is amazing.”

When the World Rally Championship resumes, the rough roads of Portugal, Sardinia and Kenya will be swapped for the smooth, fast, free-flowing forest tracks of Estonia (July 20-23) and Finland (August 3-6).