Heading into the final day of Rally Australia, Jari-Matti Latvala is runner-up with the chance to take full advantage of any opportunities that arise tomorrow, having powered his way up from fourth place this morning. Esapekka Lappi has also moved up into the points, despite the big handicap of running first on the road.
On a day characterised by intermittent rain that made judging grip extremely tricky, Latvala found the perfect compromise between speed and consistency to move up to second place by the end of the day, even with one stage cancelled in the afternoon. It was a good day for Esapekka Lappi as well, who is now ninth after a trouble-free run and is targeting a strong performance on the Power Stage tomorrow.
Quotes:
Tommi Mäkinen (Team Principal)
“Another good day for our team in tricky mixed conditions, with perfect reliability from both cars and drivers, who made no mistakes, and good information from our weather crews. A lot of teams have had issues today, so we can be happy with our performance. It was particularly challenging for Esapekka, who was first on the road today with not many repeated stages, which meant that he was always cleaning loose gravel. Not easy, but a good learning experience for him and he is back in the points now. Jari-Matti did another very good job as well to move up to second. Now he is in a perfect position to finish on the podium tomorrow if everything goes well, with the good chance of course to take advantage of any other opportunities that come his way.”
Jari-Matti Latvala (Driver car 10)
“It was damp and even wet in some places this morning, so the soft tyre was definitely the correct choice. In the afternoon it was drying out, but just before leaving service we had some information that there were some showers as. Our plan was to go with full hard tyres, but as a result of this new information we decided to swap and take two softs. That information was absolutely correct: it was damp at the beginning and end of the long stage. I don’t think I quite got the right feeling with the balance of the car, but it was still a good day and we’re looking forward to tomorrow. My only regret is that we had one stage cancelled because of a damaged bridge, as I think that stage could have suited us.”
Press release TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRC
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