Published on August 23rd, 2017 | by Daniel Sherman Fernandez
0Strong Finish for TOYOTA GAZOO Racing in Germany
Toyota City, Japan, Aug 21, 2017 – (JCN Newswire) – TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team enjoyed a great final day on Rallye Deutschland with two more stage wins, taking its total this weekend to five and demonstrating the progress that the team is making with the Yaris WRC on asphalt. Juho Hanninen took his second stage win of the event as he finished a superb fourth overall. Jari-Matti Latvala finished seventh, while Esapekka Lappi also scored a stage win to end his challenging event on a high note.
Hanninen began the day by winning the Losheim am See stage to lift him up into fourth place, a position which he then cemented over the final three tests. It completed a great performance from Hanninen on a rally he last contested in 2011. On the next stage, St. Wendeler Land, Lappi took a satisfying stage win. The Rally Finland winner had been forced to retire from the opening leg after damaging his car’s suspension and then struggled for speed after restarting yesterday, but he carefully analysed his performance overnight and made a clear improvement. Latvala, who won two stages himself earlier in the rally but was delayed by a technical issue, made it a Toyota one-two on the stage. Lappi and Latvala later finished second and third on the rally-ending Power Stage to claim four and three bonus points respectively, with Lappi missing out on the win by only 0.2 seconds.