The WRC is now part of the Rovanpera phenomenon

The planted stones and hard soil of the Portugal Rally – round 4 of this year’s WRC – was reminiscent of an ancient Acropolis. The two most successful drivers in rallying history, Sebastian Leb and Sebastian Ozier, fell, fell and went off the road, as did most of the factory staff – but not Cale Rovanpera.

But most importantly, Calais had no such problems despite starting first in the special routes on the first day, Friday (20/5). If there is one dirt rally where Leb and Ozier won such impressive dirt races first in the era of their absolute dominance – due to their points advantage – it is minimal.

Starting from the first position on the ground causes a lot of delay for the champion, who slips on the tortuous road, in addition to cleaning his surface for those who follow. But such was Rovanpera’s wisdom and driving ability in Friday’s challenge that he spent the night in stage one just 13 seconds behind Elfin Evans – who finally made his first good rally of the year worthy of his skills.

However, Rovanpera’s rise to a different – ​​already – level of maturity that separates only the very fast riders from the champions proved itself the next morning on the Amarade Special Route – the biggest of the race. At 37.24 km, Calais lost 8.2 seconds, but this loss was very well calculated and considered.

As he stepped onto the edge of Pirelli’s damaged, soft, preheated softies, the time lost by the Finn seemed impossibly short. It was a masterful driving demonstration, as one would expect from much more experienced drivers. But it was achieved by a 22-year-old who, just a few years earlier, was “the Finnish teenager who will make WRC history”. And now he started it.

In the rain on Saturday afternoon (21/5), Calais took the lead from his Toyota Evans counterpart with a lightning performance and won the second round of the great Amarante, finishing 5.7” overnight. And on Sunday morning at ED Felgueira he showed with a brilliant time that he is simply invincible.

All this at a time when, one after another, the great champions and the fastest WRC works were breaking their wheels and ripping their tires as the grooves of the Specials deepened, reaching deep into the planted rocks.

Significantly, the two legends Sebastian, Leb and Ozier were among them. Leb hit a wall in the 5th Division with a rare driving error in his second race in the M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1 – having just finished first overall in the previous race.

Ozier, who had finished only third after Leb’s departure as he didn’t immediately climb to a top pace with the Yaris Rally1, couldn’t avoid back-to-back fights in the same number of specials on Friday afternoon. And since he only had a spare tire, he had to retire.

The next day, the two Frenchmen returned but left again – Ozier after leaving ED11 (when he was distracted by a reference to the hybrid system) and Leb due to loss of engine power from the Puma R1. So their spectacular fight to win Monte in Portugal was not repeated, although they were very weak for it.

Aside from Rovanpera and Evans, the only other two drivers to avoid the problems encountered on the tough Iberian gravel roads were Hyundai’s Danny Sordo and Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta. They battled it out for 3rd place, with the experienced Spaniard the ultimate winner.

Hyundai stars Thunder Neville and Ott Tanak finished 2nd overall on Friday before being stopped by a half-axle problem and many problems with the aerodynamics of the i20 N Rally1’s muzzle. The Estonian was fourth on Friday before two fights saw him drop to 10th. But the main problem was different: with the Hyundai i20 N Rally1, as Tanak said, “everything has to change”.

M-Sport’s Craig Brin, Adrien Formo and Gus Greensmith had similar issues. The first actually had a problem every day: crash on Friday, wrong choice of tires on Saturday and problematic brakes on Sunday.

Cale Rovanpera had none of that, however, despite his tremendous pace that gave him his 3rd consecutive win this year after Sweden and Croatia in 4 games. The Finn won the WRC 50th anniversary race as well as the first dirt race of the Rally1 hybrid era.

He’s 46 points ahead of Thierry Neville at the top of the table and already – nine games before the season finale – looks the undisputed favorite to win this year’s first world title.

If Calais stays in the ‘zone’, in that magical psyche of rally drivers where absolute confidence, total freedom from stress, driving perfection and speed are beyond what seems possible, then the season can unfold like so many times past the same “Zone” was someone named Sebastian.