TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team is preparing to take on a new challenge at Rally Latvia on July 18-21 with a full four-strong driver line-up in search of victory.
This will be Latvia’s debut in the FIA World Rally Championship, taking over the place in the schedule held in recent seasons by neighbouring country Estonia. Based upon Rally Liepāja, a round of the FIA European Rally Championship, the event will be run over fast gravel roads similar to those found in Estonia, but is sure to provide its own particular challenges for the drivers, most of whom have not competed there previously.
One driver arriving with previous experience in Latvia will be reigning world champion Kalle Rovanperä, who began his rally career in the country as a teenager, winning the national championship title in 2016 and 2017. Fresh from their remarkable victory at Rally Poland following a late call-up, Rovanperä and co-driver Jonne Halttunen will be making their 50th start with TGR-WRT since stepping up to the top level with the team in 2020.
Sébastien Ogier and Vincent Landais are set to make a welcome return to action in Latvia, after they were forced to miss Rally Poland following an accident during the reconnaissance. It will be the first time Ogier has competed in Latvia, as it will be for Elfyn Evans. Their respective co-drivers did take part in Rally Liepāja previously – Scott Martin tasting victory alongside the late Craig Breen in 2015 – but only when it ran as a winter rally on snow and ice. Evans and Martin will be looking to build upon a strong second place finish in Poland which saw them close to within 15 points of the championship lead.
While Evans, Rovanperä and Ogier will push to close the 10-point gap to lead of the manufacturers’ championship, Takamoto Katsuta will also be targeting a strong result upon his return to Latvia for the first time since 2015, when he contested just his third rally in Europe there as part of the TGR WRC Challenge Program.
There are five GR Yaris Rally2 cars entered in WRC2 in Latvia. Ahead of his Rally1 debut with TGR-WRT at next month’s Rally Finland, Sami Pajari has the chance to claim the championship lead after back-to-back class wins in Sardinia and Poland in his Printsport-run car. He’s joined in action by fellow Finn Mikko Heikkilä (TGS), Estonia’s Gregor Jeets (RedGrey) and two drivers making their first start in a GR Yaris Rally2: Rakan Al-Rashed (Printsport) of Saudi Arabia and Canadian Brandon Semenuk (Sports Racing Technologies), a double American national champion.
While the service park is located in the southern coastal city of Liepāja, the capital city Riga will host the start of the rally on Thursday evening, with an opening super special stage taking place at the nearby Biķernieki circuit complex. Friday’s route is the longest of the rally with 120.92 competitive kilometres and takes the crews north-west from Riga with no mid-day service, just tyre-fitting zones before the morning and afternoon loops. Some of the stages are run just once, as is the case also on Saturday, where the action runs closer to Liepāja and is separated by mid-day service. A pair of stages run twice rounds out the event on Sunday.
