Jari-Matti LATVALA

The TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team has finished first and second on a gruelling Rally Turkey with drivers Ott Tänak and Jari-Matti Latvala. It is the first such result for the team since its return to the FIA World Rally Championship at the start of 2017, and moves the squad to the top of the manufacturers’ standings. It is the third win in a row for Tänak and the Toyota Yaris WRC: the first time any driver or team has achieved such a streak since the latest era of World Rally Cars was introduced last season. On the WRC calendar for the first time since 2010, Rally Turkey provided a considerable test to all the teams and crews, with entirely new stages over rough and rocky gravel roads that were extremely demanding for the cars and tyres. In a rally of attrition, where only five World Rally Cars completed the event without having to retire from at least one of the three legs, the approach of the Toyota team and its drivers to focus on reliability and avoiding mistakes paid dividends. Tänak and Latvala occupied fifth and fourth positions at the end of Friday and through measured driving took over at the top of the leaderboard at the beginning of Saturday afternoon as their rivals hit problems. From there, the two drivers continued to avoid problems over the remaining stages, with Tänak winning by 22.3 seconds over Latvala with almost one minute and a half further back to the third-placed crew. Esapekka Lappi was unable to take part in Sunday’s stages after his car was too heavily damaged when he went off the road on Saturday morning. This however did not prevent Toyota claiming a maximum points haul of 43 points towards the manufacturers’ championship, which it now leads by five points with three rounds remaining. Tänak, who also took three bonus points for third place on the rally-ending Power Stage, has climbed to second in the drivers’ standings, just 13 away from the lead. Latvala, fourth on the Power Stage, moves up to fifth behind Lappi. Jari-Matti Latvala (Driver car 7) “This is a great result for the team. The main thing today was to get the one-two finish and we did it. Everything went according to plan. I tried to be clever and not do anything stupid and I had a consistent run. We are trying hard to win the manufacturers’ championship so these points were very valuable, and the remainder of the season now looks very exciting. For me, it is very nice to be on the podium again. Things have started to look better since Finland. Now let’s keep it going this way.” FINAL CLASSIFICATION, RALLY TURKEY 1 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Toyota Yaris WRC) 3h59m24.5s 2 Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Anttila (Toyota Yaris WRC) +22.3s 3 Hayden Paddon/Seb Marshall (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) +1m46.3s 4 Teemu Suninen/Mikko Markkula (Ford Fiesta WRC) +4m10.9s 5 Andreas Mikkelsen/Anders Jaeger (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) +7m11.7s 6 Henning Solberg/Ilka Minor (Skoda Fabia

Toyota Yaris WRC drivers Ott Tänak and Jari-Matti Latvala sit first and second with four stages remaining on Rally Turkey, after climbing to the top of the leaderboard on a day of extreme attrition among the leading runners. The first full day of the rough gravel stages on Friday had already proven tough for all the crews, with Latvala and Tänak avoiding trouble to occupy fourth and fifth overall overnight. Tänak then displayed strong pace over this morning’s three stages to move up to second place by mid-day service, just ahead of Latvala. Further issues then struck their rivals in the first stage of the afternoon, and Tänak posted the fastest time to take the rally lead with Latvala gaining second place. The pair safely completed the day, with Tänak leading Latvala by 13.1 seconds, with more than a minute in hand over the driver in third. Esapekka Lappi was in sixth overall when he had a spin on the final stage of the morning loop, which left his car beached on the edge of the road. This forced him to retire from the day, but the team hopes to repair the car so that he will restart tomorrow under Rally2 rules. Quotes: Tommi Mäkinen (Team Principal) “This was the sort of day that I don’t think we have seen for a very long time in this championship. So many things happened and there were a lot of difficulties for all of the drivers and cars, with hot and tough conditions that were very aggressive for the tyre wear. This rally has been about survival and we are now in a very good position. Our drivers have managed it extremely well, aside for a very small mistake from Esapekka: he had a very positive pace-note and that was the result. On brand new stages, things like this can happen. Now we have our fingers crossed for tomorrow.” Jari-Matti Latvala (Driver car 7) “It has been a good day for us, particularly in the afternoon when I had a much better feeling and the car was generally working really well. Here you have to try to find a sensible limit with the driving. The grip is pretty high in some areas and that gives you the opportunity to push, but you have so many bad rocks and bumps, so it’s very easy to damage the car. Tomorrow it will be important to be consistent and stay cool.” End of day three (Saturday): 1 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Toyota Yaris WRC) 3h34m22.5s 2 Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Anttila (Toyota Yaris WRC) +13.1s 3 Hayden Paddon/Seb Marshall (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) +1m10.5s 4 Teemu Suninen/Mikko Markkula (Ford Fiesta WRC) +3m22.2s 5 Andreas Mikkelsen/Anders Jaeger (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) +6m25.4s 6 Henning Solberg/Ilka Minor (Skoda Fabia R5) +11m55.5s 7 Elfyn Evans/Daniel Barritt (Ford Fiesta WRC) +16m49.0s 8 Jan Kopecky/Pavel Dresler (Skoda Fabia R5) +17m05.9s 9 Simone Tempestini/Sergiu Itu (Citroen C3 R5) +17m50.4s 10 Chris Ingram/Ross Whittock (Skoda Fabia R5) +18m38.2s TBC Esapekka Lappi/Janne Ferm (Toyota Yaris WRC)

All three TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team drivers are inside the top seven at the end of the first full day on Rally Turkey. The all-new event has proved to be just as tough as expected, with the rough and rocky surface taking its toll on cars and tyres, but the Toyota Yaris WRC has stood up to the challenge. With all of the Toyota drivers avoiding major errors, Jari-Matti Latvala sits fourth overall overnight, with Ott Tänak in fifth and Esapekka Lappi in seventh. After Thursday night’s rally-opening street stage in Marmaris, Friday consisted of two loops of three mountainous stages to the north. Latvala completed the morning in sixth position, and then set a strong time on the second pass of the 38.1-kilometre Çetibeli stage to move up to fourth. He completed the day 16.3 seconds away from the lead. Following his back-to-back wins in Finland and Germany, Tänak experienced a tough morning but made up places during the afternoon and set the fastest time on the last test of the day, maintaining his record of claiming a stage win on every rally since joining the team at the start of 2018. It moved him up to fifth overall, with Lappi only a few seconds behind in seventh after coming second on both of the last two stages. Quotes: Tommi Mäkinen (Team Principal) “We faced some very tough conditions today and I think to have all three cars back in service this evening without any technical problems is very good. The drivers have all taken a good approach and the car has been strong. Setting the fastest time on the final stage was also good, and I’m sure that we can find the performance to keep doing that. Tomorrow is a new day and I have a feeling that everything is still possible on a rally like this.” Jari-Matti Latvala (Driver car 7) “This morning started with a good time in the first stage even though there was a lot of dust in the air from the cars in front. I lost some time in the next stages but this afternoon was much better: The stages were very rough but I tried to be clever and focus on being consistent and not making mistakes. We end the day in fourth and only 16 seconds from the lead. Tomorrow the stages are in a slightly better condition than today and I feel good about our chances.” End of day two (Friday): 1 Thierry Neuville/Nicolas Gilsoul (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) 1h52m28.2s 2 Sebastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia (Ford Fiesta WRC) +0.3s 3 Andreas Mikkelsen/Anders Jaeger (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) +2.6s 4 Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Anttila (Toyota Yaris WRC) +16.3s 5 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Toyota Yaris WRC) +31.9s 6 Hayden Paddon/Seb Marshall (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) +35.1s 7 Esapekka Lappi/Janne Ferm (Toyota Yaris WRC) +36.8s 8 Craig Breen/Scott Martin (Citroen C3 WRC) +50.1s 9 Teemu Suninen/Mikko Markkula (Ford Fiesta WRC) +1m02.9s 10 Henning Solberg/Ilka Minor (Skoda Fabia R5) +6m52.0s (Results as of 17:00

The TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team has embarked on an all-new challenge on Rally Turkey, which got underway this evening with a street stage in Marmaris. That followed shakedown, which was the first opportunity to run the cars on the type of gravel stages that will be contested this weekend. Shakedown took place on a 4.7-kilometre course close to the Asparan service park. All three Toyota Yaris WRC drivers completed three runs over the stage, with Jari-Matti Latvala finishing up third fastest, Ott Tänak fourth and Esapekka Lappi sixth. Following a ceremonial start at Marmaris Marina, the crews took on a two-kilometre street stage. Here, Tänak was the fastest Toyota driver in third, with Lappi seventh and Latvala ninth. All three are within four seconds of the rally lead. Quotes: Tom Fowler (Chief Engineer) “As we have not been here before, it was important to use shakedown to check the setup that we established in our pre-event test in Portugal. From the recce we have found that the stages are a little bit rougher than was previously anticipated, so we had to make some adjustments to get the cars a little bit higher. This went well: the drivers were very happy with the cars, the times were pretty good and there were no technical problems. This rally is going to be very tough for everybody and our focus is on reliability and endurance. It is one of the hotter rallies and we have been working hard on our cooling system. From testing we were already confident that we had resolved this, and shakedown increased our confidence with the temperatures running right down where we need them to be. With tonight’s street stage complete without issues, everything is ready for tomorrow.” Jari-Matti Latvala (Driver car 7) “It was fascinating to see the stages for the first time in the recce: There are some nice roads as well as some that are really rough. I think it will be a very challenging rally and it will be more about endurance than speed. Already on the first run on the shakedown we had quite a big impact, so we set the ride height to the maximum and then we were working with the car around that to get some more stability. I think a lot of things will happen on this rally so it will be important to stay clean and calm, and that’s how we took the first stage as well.” End of day one (Thursday): 1 Andreas Mikkelsen/Anders Jaeger (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) 2m03.9s 2 Craig Breen/Scott Martin (Citroen C3 WRC) +2.5s 3 Ott Tänak/Martin Järveoja (Toyota Yaris WRC) +2.8s 4 Thierry Neuville/Nicolas Gilsoul (Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC) +3.1s 5 Kajetan Kajetanowicz/Maciej Szczepaniak (Ford Fiesta R5) +3.1s 6 Jan Kopecky/Pavel Dresler (Skoda Fabia R5) +3.4s 7 Esapekka Lappi/Janne Ferm (Toyota Yaris WRC) +3.5s 8 Mads Ostberg/Torstein Eriksen (Citroen C3 WRC) +3.9s 9 Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Anttila (Toyota Yaris WRC) +4.0s 10 Elfyn Evans/Daniel Barritt (Ford Fiesta WRC) +4.3s (Results as of