Latvala learns lessons from team-mate tanak to put himself in the 2019 world rally championship fight
Jari-matti Latvala says Ott Tanak’s 2018 pace has driven him on and forced him to find more speed from himself and his Toyota Yaris WRC for the season ahead.
The 33-year-old starts his 13th full-time season in Monte Carlo this week and knows he will have to deliver if he’s to keep pace with his Estonian team-mate.
“We know Ott will be strong,” Latvala told MN. “When I saw this performance from him last year, I knew I had to do something for myself and that pressure has been driving me forward.”
Despite this week’s season-opener being Latvala’s 196th WRC start, the Finn is always ready to learn more – and he learned from Tanak last season.
He added: “Last year I made the car quite simple, I didn’t fully use the advantage from the centre differential. Instead I relied on quite aggressive driving to get the car to do what I wanted it to do. When Ott came to the team he was wanting to work more with the car to get it more neutral and easier to turn and then be less aggressive with the driving. I have been learning with him a bit and this is starting to work for me as well.”
Latvala finished last year in the best possible fashion, with victory in Australia and he says that performance has fired him up for 2019.
“It’s always good to go to the winter like that,” he added. “But now we have a new season, everything is reset. The first six months were very difficult for us, then since Finland, we had a very good rhythm on, and the fact that the championship for 2019 [is longer], we need to continue that same way of working the last six months to keep that going the whole year through, that is the way you can fight for the championship title.”