JARI-MATTI LATVALA
SIGNS OFF IN STYLE
Car: Toyota Yaris Team: Toyota Gazoo World Rally Team Wins: 1 Podiums: 5 Points: 128 Championship position: 4th In the form of his life in the second half of the 2018 season. Three podiums and a win in Australia signalled a stunning return to form for the eminently likeable Finn. Most importantly his head seems to be in the right place with the Puuppola-based Toyota team. Played a major part in securing the manufacturers’ crown for Toyota and will be a contender in 2019.
Seeing the end of an 11-year career looming onto the horizon can be an incredibly motivating force. Just ask Jan Kopecky (or Dani Sordo, obviously…). Kopecky came into this season not really sure what his year was going to look like. It ended up being his best yet.
So often in the past, the Czech star has been forced to play second fiddle to the next big thing coming through in a Skoda. But, having served his time in the Asia Pacific and European Rally Championships, Kopecky was finally given a shot at the big one; Skoda sanctioned his assault on the R5’s biggest prize: WRC2. Kopecky repaid that faith with a remarkable campaign that delivered five wins, a second place and the title.
Once again, however, the WRC2 battle was skewed by the fact that the main protagonists came together on just one occasion. Ironically, they weren’t avoiding each other – it was Skoda’s decision when and where to run Kopecky and team-mates Pontus Tidemand and Kalle Rovanpera. But the simple fact that Turkey provided the only head-to-head competition once again demonstrated that the FIA and WRC Promoter doesn’t have an answer to the calendar for the series’ second tier.
But let’s not get bogged down in that. Instead, let’s revel in Kopecky’s mastery of the Fabia R5. Jan was the man in Turkey as his Swedish team-mate and rival Tidemand suffered two punctures and broken wheels in successive stages, ruling him out and ruining his year.
Tidemand’s season didn’t get off to the best of starts, when he was beaten at home by Toyota’s junior Japanese driver Takamoto Katsuta – a surprise, but worthy winner of WRC2 in Karlstad. He won his next three rallies, but retiring in Turkey effectively ended his hopes of a successful WRC2 title defence.
Kopecky deserved the win. And Rovanpera certainly deserved the headlines and the plaudits he earned for his wins in Wales and Spain at the end of the 18-year-old’s first season in WRC2.
Gus Greensmith upheld M-sport’s honour with fourth. The Manchester driver made a solid start to the season, with a brace of seconds in Mexico and Argentina, but retirements in Germany and Turkey hit his title campaign hard.
The Junior WRC title race went to the wire with just about every driver still able to take the crown, partly thanks to a double-header finale in Marmaris. Dennis Radstrom was the early pacesetter, taking two wins from the first three rounds in the six-event series. But when the Swede crashed in Finland, his countryman Emil Bergkvist justified his decision to step back from WRC2 to the junior series by taking the title – and the biggest prize in world rallying, a new Ford Fiesta R5 – on the final round. ■