The reigning world champion Kalle Rovanperä has been called in to replace the Frenchman Sébastien Ogier in this week’s Rally Poland after Ogier and co-driver Vincent Landais were involved in a head-on collision during Tuesday’s recce.
Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT announced on Tuesday evening that the eight-time world champion would stay in the hospital over night for observation and that the Frenchman would miss the rally completely. Later in the evening it was confirmed Rovanperä would step in for Ogier and stewards issued a decision granting Toyota permission to replace the crew in the third Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 car.
Rovanperä and co-driver Jonne Halttunen will be facing some challenges as the crew hasn’t been participating in any pre-event tests but they have been granted permission to do recce runs on special stages on an exceptional schedule.
The recce for the crew will begin on Wednesday morning with 12 hours and the remaining two stages will be checked at Thursday afternoon just a couple of hours before the official rally starts in the evening.