Rally Latvia 2024 Preview

Time for the eighth round of this season’s championship as the crews move onto the roads of Latvia. Still leading the way in the championship standings are Thierry and Martijn for Hyundai Motorsport.

Elfyn and Scott returned to second in the championship standings after the previous round in Poland following their podium finish and of course Ott and Martin had their problem with wildlife meaning they only scored points on Sunday and are third in the standings.

Let’s take a look at the stages and hear from the drivers.

Weekend at a Glance

Rally Latvia commences on Thursday morning with a Shakedown, followed by SS1 Bikernieki Track (11.13km) in the evening.

Friday, the longest day of the weekend, will feature eight stages, with only two remote tyre fitting zones splitting the 120.92km competitive distance.

Saturday will see crews tackle eight stages, six of which are contested only once, meaning crews will be venturing into the unknown for most of the day.

All eyes will be on the teams entering Sunday’s running, as the final service for the weekend will take place on Saturday evening, leaving a 64.08km distance to compete on the closing day of the event.

Hyundai Motorsport

Thierry Neuville

“Rally Latvia is going to be another challenging rally, and it is always more difficult when you are first on the road and the first to discover the conditions. We know the surface of the event is very similar to Estonia, maybe even a bit faster, but Poland has helped us to prepare for a fast rally after a series of slower, more technical events. We’ve been watching a lot of onboard footage from other championships to learn the characteristics, the itinerary, and start to get a feel for tyre choices and set-up. I’m mainly focused on my two main championship rivals and trying to take more points from them, but it will be difficult – the cleaning will be massive, some stages aren’t repeated, and a lot of fast part-time drivers will be there, so while our expectations are not so high our motivation is to finish ahead of our rivals is strong.”

Ott Tänak

“I like driving these types of profiles, but while I have competed at this event in the past, I haven’t been there for over ten years. The roads are very similar to what we have seen in previous rounds such as Poland, where we had a very successful Sunday, and surface-wise it is comparable to our home event in Estonia. We weren’t able to demonstrate our full potential in Poland after our retirement on Friday, so hopefully Latvia will be a smoother ride. It is hard to say what to expect from the weekend, but we will try to extract the most out of Rally Latvia.”

Esapekka Lappi

“We competed at Rally Latvia in 2014, however it was a winter event at that time, so we won’t be able to transfer so much of our experience from so long ago. I’ve been studying a lot of videos and onboards from recent years, as well as discussing the characteristics and potential setup of the car with our engineer. Our Lithuanian rally will be very helpful, as seat time is crucial to get used to high-speed roads, and our last event was in Kenya – a very different rally to Latvia. We’re targeting the podium – everything is possible at an event like this.”

 

Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT

Elfyn Evans

“I’m looking forward to seeing what Rally Latvia is all about. On paper it could be quite similar in character to Rally Poland as another fast gravel event, but I’m sure that it will have its own specific challenges and we have to discover those and see the stages for ourselves when we get there. We had a pretty good feeling with the car in Poland and we hope to be able to carry that forward, and I believe we can still build upon what we learned that weekend. Hopefully we can continue our good momentum in the championship, enjoy the event and come away with some good points at the finish.”

Sébastien Ogier

“It was quite unfortunate what happened during our preparations in Poland. Now after some rest, and some good help from my medical team, I could recover pretty quickly and I’m looking forward to being back in a rally car in Latvia. The challenge of a new rally is generally something I like and that’s one of the reasons we added this event to our programme. The target for us will be to find the feeling for the very high-speed roads quickly after missing Poland, but I’m always excited for a new challenge and let’s see what we can do.”

Kalle Rovanperä

“I’m really looking forward to go back to Latvia. I have so many good memories from my early days there and I hope to see many friends and familiar faces next week. It will be a fast rally: a bit of a mix between Poland and Estonia in terms of character. I’m sure it will be really spectacular to watch and a big fight on the stages. It’s been seven years since I last drove in Latvia, so I don’t think that experience will count for much and I will be preparing for it like any new rally. Poland went well even in the strange circumstances we had, and I hope we can carry on the good feeling, and that with better preparation we can do a good job.”

Takamoto Katsuta

“It’s going to be nice to go back to Latvia. My biggest memory from my last rally there is of probably the biggest crash of my career. It was one of my first ever rallies in Europe, so it was a long time ago and it will be a completely different story now. It’s going to be a totally new rally for most of the drivers, including myself, and I want to set a high target for the weekend. It will be a similarly fast rally to Poland, and I want to take the positives from there onto Latvia. We need to prepare as well as we can, and I’ve been looking at everything together with the team to improve and be better there.”

 

M-Sport Ford WRT

Adrien Fourmaux

“Latvia rally will be the second of the three fast gravel rallies this season, and I don’t really know what to expect! There aren’t as many jumps as in Poland, but it’s still a really fast rally with a loose surface on the top. After the great result we had in Poland, we want to try and match that and even better it if we can. It’s going to be interesting to see where we are when it’s a new rally for nearly everybody.”

Grégoire Munster

“I’m looking forward to Latvia as we found some good pace in Poland; the roads are quite similar here, just with a harder surface, but it’s still a very fast event in the fields and the forest. We will also have a good starting position, so we will try to benefit from that on the first day. I’m just excited to get started.”

Mārtiņš Sesks

“After one day of testing, there’s still a lot to find out about what we can do with this extra speed of hybrid. We are well aware that on better-known roads, our attention to pacenote details has to be two times more. But it’s clear that our country’s first-ever WRC round is going to be a thrilling mix of speed and challenges – and that’s exactly what gets our hearts racing!”

William Creighton

“Latvia will provide a real change of pace from the first half of the season – our first proper fast gravel rally in a Rally2 car. The plan is to put the things we’ve learnt over the first half of the season to good use, but with a new profile of stages it will no doubt take a bit of learning from my side. All the prep is done now – I just want to approach the rally relaxed, enjoy it and get the best out of myself!”

 

WRC2

Oliver Solberg

“Latvia is where I started my career, I have some incredible memories from competing in this country when I was young and, of course, from the win in 2019. To make history like that, to become the youngest driver ever to win in ERC was something amazing for me back then – I never forget that one.

“Coming back to Latvia is really nice. The people and the support is very special here – and so are the roads. I remember having a lot of fun on these roads and I’m sure that’s going to be the same next week. Of course, everything is quite a bit more serious now, we are going to Liepāja chasing points in WRC2 and there’s a world championship to be won.

“I’m hoping we can settle in and find a good feeling straight away. The roads should give more support, I don’t think they will be so soft or rutted on the second pass. And, for sure, I think they will be as fast as the last round.

“Poland was tough, but we made second in the end. This time I really want to win. We have a pretty good record on these fast rallies and my win [among Rally2 cars] and sixth overall in Finland last year is definitely one of the highlights of my career so far. Another one of those would suit Elliott [Edmondson, co-driver] and me very well!”

Summary

It will be interesting to see who gets on the pace from the start. For the championship leaders it will be a case of damage limitation as they have to sweep the road throughout Friday’s stages.

Anyone of the top drivers could stand on the podium. Standby for action!