How Rovanpera can become world champion in the ECO Rally Acropolis

Kale Rovanpera, the new child prodigy of the eternal Finnish school of the world’s best rally drivers, can mathematically secure this year’s World Rally Championship at this year’s ECO Rally Acropolis.

Toyota’s young Finn has 203 points, 72 points ahead of Hyundai’s Ott Tanak, 87 points ahead of his Toyota counterpart Elfyn Evans and 97 points ahead of Hyundai’s Thierry Neville. In theory, the bottom three are still fighting for the title before the 10th of 13 rounds of this year’s WRC.

With the winner receiving 25 points at each WRC race, plus 5 points for the driver who wins the final power stage and with 3 races remaining in the season finale, Rovanpera must secure the upcoming 90-point three-day gap to its runners-up in the championship in order to clinch the championship also to be conquered mathematically on Sunday.

This would have been easier for the Finn in our country if he had not had the accident on the 2nd special leg of the previous race, the Ypres Rally, Belgium, where the Yaris Rally1 overturned several times off-road. So it’s not enough for him to win the Acropolis to secure the championship – he also has to hope for a failure from Tanak.

Rovanpera in particular has 18 more to conquer in our country than Hyundai’s Estonian, who is the only driver with realistic – albeit slim – hopes of stripping him of this year’s title. Evans can theoretically stay in the race if he doesn’t lose more than 3 points to Rovanpera, while Neville has to win 8 points more than the Finn in Greece.

Kale Rovanpera won Rally Acropolis last year, the race’s return to the World Championship after 8 years, and no doubt wants to repeat that success this year. Of late, however, it has faced increasing competition from Hyundai, who are demonstrating the i20 N Rally 1’s continuous improvement in both speed and reliability following Tanak’s back-to-back victories in Finland and Belgium.

In short, if Rovanpera gets both the race win and the power stage, he will secure the championship if Tanak finishes the race in 4th place and gets no points in the power stage, if Tanak finishes the race in 5th place and in the power stage finishes 4th or lower, or if the Estonian is 6th (and under) overall and 2nd on the Power Stage.

So the scenarios are countless, but graphically Kale Rovanpera needs to finish the EKO Rally Acropolis in first or second place to have any hopes of mathematically winning the title on Sunday. And if he can do that, it all depends on Tanak – if the Estonian and Hyundai return to form from the last few games then the Calais crown will be moved to New Zealand, either Catalonia or the final in Japan.

Sportish lives the legendary EKO Acropolis Rally together with EKO, the largest Greek marketing company in its category and a main sponsor of the event and also the “EKO Super Special Stage” in OAKA.