Rovanpera’s Portugal WRC win reminiscent of a dominant Ogier

Rovanpera produced a masterclass display on Portugal’s tricky gravel stages to claim a fifth career WRC win and his third consecutive triumph following success on snow in Sweden and Croatia’s tarmac stages.

Expectations of victory were tempered heading into Portugal given the Finn faced the tough task of opening the dusty gravel roads on Friday virtue of being the championship leader.

However, the 21-year-old coped admirably as road sweeper ending Friday second overall 13.6s behind Toyota teammate Elfyn Evans.

Rovanpera was then able to hunt down Evans on Saturday before going on to record 15.2s victory on Sunday, including a final power stage win to claim a perfect 30 points from the weekend.

This is the second event in succession where Rovanpera has won being first on the road, which prompted Latvala to compare his young driver to Ogier, a proven master at road sweeping during his run to eight world titles.

Ironically, this weekend ultimately proved a difficult weekend for Ogier on his WRC return with Toyota, after a double puncture on Friday and an uncharacteristic crash on Saturday.

“Once again he [Kalle] has surprised us because we didn’t expect him to win, as he was first car on the road, but he did it,” Latvala told Motorsport.com.

“Elfyn was driving really well fighting for the victory and putting the pressure on Kalle, but this time Kalle found more performance.

“It [Kalle’s victory in Portugal] reminds me of the dominance of Sebastien Ogier back in the 2013 when he was driving the Volkswagen for the first time [when he won his first title].

“He was putting all the other drivers under pressure and Kalle has now done the same and it very difficult when a driver is in what I call the flow zone. It is very difficult for the others to beat him and he has found that.

“For Kalle all of the things are clicking together he stays calm and doesn’t take…