Rovanperä relishes snow test as Latvala shines in classic Toyota

The younger of the two Finns was in the northern town of Rovaniemi to gather experience and data from his GR Yaris Rally1 running on Hankook’s Sweden-specification snow tire. Latvala was shaking down his Celica Turbo 4WD ahead of a forthcoming European Historic Rally Championship challenge.

The pair were joined by M-Sport Ford, the British squad running a sole Puma Rally1 for Jourdan Serderidis, ahead of the Greek driver’s Rally Sweden outing next week.

Rovanperä, who finished second, admitted his time inside the Arctic Circle had been both fun and insightful.

“It’s always nice to come to this event,” he said, “it’s a super-cool rally. And it was really important for us to come here with the new tire from Hankook. We came to get a bit more feeling and more kilometres on snow and try to find the best setup and best way for us to go and, yeah, it was a good weekend.”

Despite missing out on a possible sixth place after his Celica hit trouble on the final stage of the two-day event, Latvala was similarly pleased with his time in the snow and ice.

“It was nice to start our season and to start this story [of the European title chase] and the Celica in the Arctic,” said Latvala, who was classified seventh. “It was also useful to be here with Kalle.”

The Toyota pair were usurped for the win by Tuukka Kauppinen, who won the event in a Toyota GR Yaris Rally2, running on Finnish Championship-specification tyres. Former Hyundai driver Esapekka Lappi was third aboard a Škoda Fabia RS Rally2.