Latvala hails Toyota's Latvia team effort

Hard on the heels of a very much unexpected Kalle Rovanperä win in Poland (largely because he wasn’t scheduled to compete in Mikołajki and only did so after team-mate Sébastien Ogier suffered a road accident on the recce), the reigning world champion was on sensational form to dominate Latvia’s maiden WRC outing.

Ten points down on rival Hyundai Motorsport going into Latvia, Latvala’s squad narrowed that deficit to just a single point ahead of its ‘home’ event, next week’s Secto Rally Finland.

Latvala said: “Latvia has been a fantastic event for us. After Rally Poland we scored another one-two finish and took some really important and vital points for the championship, closing the gap in the manufacturers’ standings.

“Kalle did an amazing job leading from the first stage onwards, I think he was even more dominant than expected. This was nice to see. He was relaxed and really enjoying his driving in somewhere that’s been quite special for him.”

Typically, Latvala was fulsome in his praise for the rest of the team, adding: “It was also great to see how well Séb [Ogier] was driving to take the second place when he’s not been driving these fast rallies for a while. Elfyn [Evans] started really well on Friday considering his road position (second on the road), even though I know he would have hoped for more points.”

And finally, there was praise for the GR Yaris Rally1 ahead of one of its biggest weeks of the year.

He concluded: “The performance of the car has been superb, our drivers have been fast and it gives us good confidence to go to our home event in Finland next week.”