Hi, friends!
Flying Finn Esapekka Lappi is sharing a 3rd seat at Toyota with eight-time World Rally Champion Seb Ogier who started the season at Monte Carlo Rallye and after that it's turn for Lappi to take the duties of scoring the points for the works team of Japanese manufacturer.
Lappi finished 3rd in Sweden but he was always good at snow and ice surface so it was expected for him to shine bright there.
Otherwise, on tarmac it is a different story because Scandinavian drivers are well known as a gravel specialist and rarely some of them won at the sealed surface. I remember only Petter Solberg and Tommi Makinen who were able to win on tarmac from the Scandinavian drivers. Juha Kankkunen won four WRC crowns but he never won on tarmac and these are the facts
So what to expect from Lappi who didn't drive on this kind of surface for year and half?
Well, he did good with M-Sport Ford at that last rally with them in Monza at the end of season 2020. He scored 4th place overall and that was really good because that car was not competitive at that time.
Lappi is very cool driver and he drives with his head. He doesn't make a mistakes when being under pressure. I rarely see him doing some stupid stuff.
He lost some confidence during the season with Citroen in 2019 but that was because of the car with C3 WRC so uncompetitive that even Seb Ogier couldn't make it work properly. Something was wrong with the development of that car when they couldn't make it more stable because it was down to the chassis.
But now he has a winning car Toyota Yaris Rally1 and all he needs is to finish the rallies, be competitive on the surface he is usually quick and don't make mistakes where he is doesn't perform the best.
He revealed that he won't go balls to the wall approach in Croatia because he wasn't there last season so he needs an experience first to go 100% on the next outing on tarmac.
Credit for photos and videos to WRC and Youtube
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