Central European Rally: Day 4
Rovanperä and Halttunen win back-to-back WRC titles with TOYOTA GAZOO Racing*
Kalle Rovanperä and co-driver Jonne Halttunen have secured their second consecutive FIA World Rally Championship titles* with TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team after finishing in second place on the penultimate round of the 2023 season, the Central European Rally.
After being crowned the youngest-ever World Rally Champion in 2022 driving the GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID, 23-year-old Rovanperä has now become the sixth driver to achieve back-to-back titles in the history of the WRC.
It’s the fifth year in a row that a TGR-WRT crew has won the drivers’ and co-drivers’ crowns, and also completes a third straight hat-trick of titles for the team after it clinched the manufacturers’ championship on the previous rally in Chile.
The team entered the inaugural cross-border Central European Rally in the knowledge that only Rovanperä or his team-mate Elfyn Evans could become this year’s drivers’ champion. With 31 points between them, Rovanperä had to avoid being outscored by Evans to ensure the title with a round to spare, and made a strong start on the first full day of the rally on Friday. He won four out of six stages on demanding wet asphalt roads in the Czech Republic to lead by 36.4 seconds at the end of the day.
