At Rally Estonia, the home crew of Robert Virves and Jakko Viilo claimed victory once again after a year. They won following an intense battle and are now second in the WRC2 championship standings. A total of five crews driving Škoda cars finished in the top ten in Estonia.
Robert Virves surged to the top of the standings in his home Rally Estonia after just the second special stage and didn’t let anyone pass him until the finish. However, his victory in Estonia was by no means easy, as his rivals were constantly pressing him from behind.
After approximately 100 kilometers of Friday’s stage, the top six crews in the WRC2 category were separated by just ten seconds. During Friday’s competition, Virves’s lead was at most 3.1 seconds, and he ended the day with a 2.5-second advantage. He didn’t pull too far ahead of his rivals on Saturday either but he did end the day with a 10.1-second lead.
On Sunday, the crews faced only two runs through the Kääriku special stage; after the first one, the Estonian duo’s lead had narrowed to 5.7 seconds. But Virves kept his nerves in check, stepped on the gas, and won the final stage—which was also a super special stage—allowing him to celebrate a 7.6-second lead at the finish.
“Crazy! I don’t even know where to start. This was definitely the toughest rally of my career so far. We gave it our all from start to finish. For my daughter, this is her first WRC rally. So we had no choice but to win. A huge thank you goes to the Toksport WRT team for another flawlessly organized event,” beamed Robert Virves on the podium.
Virves thus has an amazing record in this year’s WRC2 season: he has won all three rounds in which he has competed. His 100% success rate has propelled him to second place in the championship standings, with four more points-scoring rounds still to go. His closest rivals have two or three rounds remaining.
Other crews driving Škoda cars also performed excellently in Estonia. Emil Lindholm and his co-driver Gabriel Morales, driving the second car for the Toksport WRT team, finished in fourth place, followed by three other crews driving cars from the Mladá Boleslav-based manufacturer. The Swedish duo of Mille Johansson and Johan Grönvall finished fifth while another local pair, Patrick Enok and Silver Simm, took sixth place. Seventh place went to the Finnish crew of Lauri Joona and Antti Linnaketo. Thus, a total of five Škoda cars finished in the top ten of the final WRC2 standings.
However, some crews driving cars from the Czech automaker also ran into bad luck. For example, Mikko Heikkilä and Kristian Temonen failed to score any points after they were forced to retire on Sunday morning when a shock absorber on their car broke following a hard landing. Jan Solans and his co-driver Rodrigo Sanjuán, on the other hand, rolled their PH.Ph team’s Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 during the third special stage.
The next Nordic showdown awaits us as early as next week, when the championship moves to Finland once again to tackle fast gravel stages.
