For large parts of the season Kalle Rovanpera looked unusually lost as he struggled to understand and extract speed from the new Hankook tyres.
But when he did gel with the rubber, he was untouchable, leading to dominant wins for Toyota in the Canary Islands, Finland and Central Europe.
That run ignited a title bid that went to the final round, which had seemed unlikely in mid-season. This wasn’t a vintage season from the Finn, who did make some errors, but 53 stage wins from a package he largely couldn’t get on with was still mightily impressive.
Read and post comments