P1racenews AI automatic summary:
Evans wins Arctic Lapland Rally as Rovanpera suffers technical issue
The factory Toyota duo, consisting of drivers Kalle Rovanpera and Elfyn Evans, participated in the snow rally to gain valuable experience driving their GR Yaris Rally1 cars before the upcoming Rally Sweden. Evans emerged as the winner, defeating Mikko Heikkila, the 2022 Finnish rally champion, by a margin of 5m02.3s after Rovanpera encountered trouble and had to retire from the rally. Rovanpera and his co-driver Jonne Halttunen, who will begin their WRC partial season in Sweden, led for most of the rally until a technical issue arose during the final stage. Despite this setback, the team was able to gather important mileage and refine the car’s setup. The rally also saw the participation of Toyota’s WRC team principal Jari-Matti Latvala, as well as the brand’s WRC Challenge drivers Hikaru Kogure and Yuki Yamamoto. In another rally, Pierre-Louis Loubet, a former M-Sport WRC driver, secured victory in the Qatar International Rally, surpassing Mads Ostberg, another Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 driver, by a mere 4.6 seconds.
