Esapekka Lappi admitted afterwards that he didn’t think he’d win again in the World Rally Championship. But having waited six years, six months and 19 days, the Finn’s victory drought is at an end.
While his lowly road position, plus Toyota returnee Kalle Rovanpera and Hyundai’s Ott Tanak crashing out on Friday, helped his cause, Lappi had outpaced Tanak twice and beaten Rovanpera to the stage-three win before the fourth stage proved the undoing of Hyundai man Lappi’s two principal rivals.
But Lappi wasn’t leading when the survivors made it back to Umea for midday service on Friday. Instead, it was Takamoto Katsuta at the top of the Rally1 pile after Toyota’s Japanese development driver went quickest of all on stage four to lead by 11.4s.
If Katsuta was a somewhat surprise leader, Georg Linnamae was a shock
