The reigning two-time world champion won Thursday night’s super special and stage two on Friday morning to open up a 5.7s lead over Toyota team-mate heading into stage four where drama struck.
In an incident unseen by television cameras, Rovanpera ran wide as snow began to fall on the stage. The 23-year-old clouted a snowbank which resulted in his GR Yaris suffering damage to its radiator.
“We went wide on a quite simple place, a right-hand corner. I wasn’t really expecting to have any moment there at that speed, so it caught me by surprise a bit,” Rovanpera told Autosport.
“We went wide and hit the snowbank and I think some guys in front had opened up a bit of a hole in the bank and it kicked us quite hard, and we basically just spun 360 degrees and broke the radiator.
“It [the conditions] was quite tricky but not as extreme as I was expecting. The grip change was big, but it was still driveable and was quite ok after that.”
Rovanpera headed to Sweden as the overwhelming favourite to win this weekend’s rally that marked the first round of his reduced 2024 WRC programme with Toyota.
Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala had earmarked Rovanpera as the team’s best hope to win the rally.
Rovanpera appeared to be in ominous form across Thursday and Friday morning but was unusually unhappy with his driving in stage three.
“The middle stage was just not so good driving from me, I was not brave enough and then on this one [stage four] the beginning felt quite good. It was difficult conditions, but the driving was going fine. I need to check if the pacenote was a bit too optimistic for this one,” he added.
Rovanpera is expected to rejoin the rally on Saturday with a revised target of scoring points from the new Super Sunday format.
