Rovanpera crashes Solberg’s party
For one rally only, Skoda could keep its wunderkind. Ahead of the final European WRC2 round of the season, the focus was all about a former champion and his team of former champions.
Petter Solberg and Volkswagen Motorsport stole Kalle Rovanpera’s limelight and headlines in the lead up to the event. And then delivered on the hype on Friday lunchtime by bringing the all-new Polo GTI R5s back to service in first and second position.
Admittedly, Solberg’s team-mate, rapid Frenchman Eric Camilli had misread the script and placed his car ahead of the 2003 champion’s. Petter didn’t mind. It didn’t matter.
“I’m here to have fun,” beamed Solberg, having leapt out of the car and into the Friday lunchtime sunshine in Salou. “I didn’t have such great feeling from the car in the first one, but we made some changes and it was really nice in the last one – really nice to be fastest as well!”
The boy was back. And the giants from Hanover were right there with him.
Unfortunately for them, the dream didn’t last. The teenager stormed the party and stole the show. Hampered by a dodgy damper on Friday morning, Rovanpera was sublime on a wet Saturday. Ignoring the fact that he’d never tested in those wet conditions, he bolted on the more conservative wet tyre and set about the rain.
One stage into the weekend and boy wonder was out front and staying there. He didn’t walk away with it though. Camilli was right with him until a selector rod broke in the Polo’s gearbox in the second shot at Savalla and Rovanpera’s team-mate Jan Kopecky still had designs on the perfect season, arriving in Spain on the back of five starts and five wins.
By the end, the two factory Fabia R5s had eased their way clear of Volkswagen Group stablemate Solberg.
A generation ago, it wasn’t often that a Rovanpera beat a Solberg, but Kalle showed his father Harri where he’d been going wrong in Spain.
“I think I should be ahead of Petter,” said Kalle with a grin, “I have been driving my car more than him this year, it’s probably normal. It’s been good. The rain wasn’t so nice, but I made some good time with the softest tyre – I could move the car around a bit with this tyre. When it dried out on Sunday, we had quite a lot of understeer, but once we got rid of that in service everything was good.”
Ahead of the start, Skoda had confirmed there would be no late Australia entry for Pontus Tidemand, therefore confirming Kopecky was, indeed, a world champion. “It was quite a strange feeling for the weekend,” said Kopecky, “to know we were champions before the start. But when the rally started, we focused to this and made a nice result for the team.”
Solberg was equally chuffed with the podium’s bottom step.
“We came here to learn about the car and to make it faster for the customer,” said Solberg. “We did that. We made changes to the car to find out what would happen, knowing it might not necessarily make it quicker. It’s been great to be back. We have seen speed from me and from Eric and we’ve seen a great car from Volkswagen.”
Outgoing European Rally champion Kajto Kajetanowicz was fourth with fellow Ford Fiesta R5 driver Nil Solans one place behind. The top six was rounded out by a second Solberg – Henning’s Skoda Fabia R5.
Victory in WRC 3 was enough for Enrico Brazzoli to clinch the title. Brits Tom Williams (Ford Fiesta R2T) and Nabila Tejpar (Peugeot 208 R2) both ran well, but weren’t registered for points. Fiesta driver Louise Cook finished behind them, but took third in WRC 3.