TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team is celebrating a maximum score on a challenging Rally Chile as Kalle Rovanperä claimed victory ahead of team-mate Elfyn Evans.
In addition to its overall one-two, TGR-WRT also locked out the top three places in the separate Super Sunday classification and posted the fastest two times in the rally-ending Power Stage.
It therefore becomes the first team to secure the maximum possible haul of 55 manufacturers’ points under the new system introduced for 2024 – doing all it can to maintain its championship ambitions with two rounds remaining and reducing the gap to the lead from 35 to 17 points.
Sunday’s final loop of four stages brought a continuation of the demanding conditions experienced on Saturday in the mountains of the Biobío region to the south of host city Concepción, when Rovanperä took the lead from Evans in heavy fog.
Running first on the road as he restarted following damage on Saturday morning, Sébastien Ogier seized the opportunity presented by the damp conditions to set the pace on the final day, winning every one of the last four stages together with co-driver Vincent Landais.
Rovanperä had entered the final day with a lead of 15.1 seconds over Evans that he extended during the morning’s first two tests. In a thrilling finish to the Power Stage, he was just 0.1s slower than Ogier as he clinched his fourth win of the season along with co-driver Jonne Halttunen.
Rovanperä’s 15th win together with TGR-WRT draws him level with fellow two-time champion Carlos Sainz as the drivers who have achieved the most FIA World Rally Championship victories for Toyota.
Evans and his co-driver Scott Martin made a strong return to the podium for the fifth time this season, having claimed the rally lead on Friday morning and held it until they faced the worst of the fog on Saturday afternoon. They took third on Super Sunday and fifth on the Power Stage.
Both Ogier and Evans remain in mathematical contention for the drivers’ championship going into the last two rounds of the season with 60 points still up for grabs.
Sami Pajari and Enni Mälkönen finished in sixth position in their second event in a GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID. Building on their strong debut at Rally Finland, they made an impressive start on Friday, ending the day just 12.2s from the lead in fourth place. When conditions then became more difficult, Pajari demonstrated a mature approach to focus on gaining valuable experience and cleanly reaching the finish.
Pajari will have a further chance to add to his Rally1 experience on the next event at the Central European Rally and retains a chance of winning the WRC2 championship title at the season-ending event in Japan.
Quotes:
Jari-Matti Latvala (Team Principal)
“This is a great result for our team. A perfect Sunday for the first time this season feels really good, especially after the devastating blows, we felt on the final days of the past two events. Our drivers did a magnificent job today pushing until the end of the last stage. This result will boost the whole team and give them extra motivation for the two remaining events. Kalle and Elfyn both drove really well the whole weekend and either would have deserved to win the rally. Seb did really quick times on every stage he did and thanks to his speed and his fighting spirit today, we take away really important points for the manufacturers’ championship. Lastly, Sami did exactly what we were looking for this weekend, driving consistently and bringing the car home with a really mature performance, gaining more and more experience. So, all in all, it has been a really positive rally for us.”
Kalle Rovanperä (Driver car 69)
“This win feels really good for us. It was a tough weekend and it always feels good when you’ve really had to fight for a victory. It wasn’t easy at any point with all of the weather and everything, but we did a good job. On Friday I wasn’t feeling so comfortable, but we made it through without any big mistakes and when conditions became difficult we could make some big gaps. It was important to push today as well and together with our team-mates we scored really important points for the manufacturers’ championship and we can be very happy with that. A big thanks to the team: the car was really strong this weekend.”
Elfyn Evans (Driver car 33)
“It’s been a good weekend more or less from the start to the end. We showed some good performance and it’s an amazing result for the team and I’m happy to be a part of that. The conditions didn’t go in our favour yesterday, but Kalle did well with the strategy and has driven really well, so congratulations to him. Today we had more wet conditions and quite a bit of fog around too, but we managed to get through cleanly with no issues and still some decent speed. The result has really helped in the manufacturers’ championship, and we just need to focus on continuing in the same way now until the end of the year.”
Sébastien Ogier (Driver car 17)
“It’s nice to finish the weekend on a positive note and really help the team today to bring the manufacturers’ championship back alive. I still feel a bit disappointed with myself and the mistakes we made on the previous days which were very costly, because we had amazing speed and won most of the stages we finished. But that’s not enough in rallying: you need to put it all together and we didn’t do that this weekend. I had a lot of fun driving the car and I want to thank the team for all their efforts improving the car, as it’s never felt so good on gravel. We are going in the right direction, and we will keep on pushing up to Rally Japan.”
Sami Pajari (Driver car 5)
“It’s really nice to reach the finish of this rally. Thank you to the team, because it has been such a pleasure to drive this great car again. Friday was quite promising for us and we could show some pace. Then there was a lot of learning on the following two days with tricky conditions but that’s part of the game. To get safely through the whole rally was the main plan, so we need to be happy with that and at least we could show good pace on some of the stages. Now I can’t wait for Central European Rally which will be another new challenge with a lot to learn.”
PROVISIONAL FINAL CLASSIFICATION, RALLY CHILE
| 1. | Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) | 2h58m59.8s |
| 2. | Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) | +23.4s |
| 3. | Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) | +43.9s |
| 4. | Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) | +1m01.1s |
| 5. | Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) | +2m02.7s |
| 6. | Sami Pajari/Enni Mälkönen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) | +2m39.7s |
| 7. | Grégoire Munster/Louis Louka (Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID) | +2m47.7s |
| 8. | Yohan Rossel/Florian Barral (Citroën C3 Rally2) | +8m31.4s |
| 9. | Nikolay Gryazin/Konstantin Aleksandrov (Citroën C3 Rally2) | +8m48.7s |
| 10. | Gus Greensmith/Jonas Andersson (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) | +8m52.1s |
| 36. | Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) | +1h27m03.1s |
2024 FIA World Rally Championship for drivers after round 11:
| 1. | Thierry Neuville | 207 points |
| 2. | Ott Tänak | 178 |
| 3. | Sébastien Ogier | 166 |
| 4. | Elfyn Evans | 161 |
| 5. | Adrien Fourmaux | 140 |
| 6. | Kalle Rovanperä | 114 |
| 7. | Takamoto Katsuta | 80 |
| 8. | Dani Sordo | 44 |
| 9. | Sami Pajari | 41 |
| 10. | Esapekka Lappi | 33 |
2024 FIA World Rally Championship for manufacturers after round 11:
| 1. | Hyundai Shell Mobis World Rally Team | 482 points |
| 2. | TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team | 465 |
| 3. | M-Sport Ford World Rally Team | 245 |
What’s next?
There’s a return to asphalt for the last two rounds of the season, beginning with the Central European Rally on October 17-20. First held in 2023, this cross-border event takes place on demanding roads in Germany, the Czech Republic and Austria.
