The final day of the Rally Sweden, Toyota driver Kalle Rovanperä started and finished as leader: and the Finn managed to win not only because of his speed, but also because of the problems of the pursuers. Rovanperää’s main rival for first place went down in Sunday’s first stage. Elfyn Evans, who was second in the total protocol, intended to win back the ten-second penalty and catch up with Calle, but the pilot failed to cope with the control and during one of the fast corners ran into a snowdrift.
Evans initially appeared to have withdrawn due to mechanical damage from the incident, but the Welshman later explained that problems with the hybrid powertrain component were to blame. Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville, who was trailing Rovanpera by around 20 seconds all Sunday, took advantage of Evans’ exit into second place. The Belgian couldn’t close the gap to the leader, but his speed was enough to finish ahead of Esapekka Lappi, who was trailing. Lappi himself was four seconds behind Neuville before the last stage, but he couldn’t catch up with his rival.
The other Hyundai driver was much less fortunate than Neuville. Ott Tänak dropped out of the race on Friday: his car had essentially the same thing that happened to Evans’ car, namely a failure of the hybrid component. As a result, the Estonian finished outside the top ten. But nonetheless he managed to win the power stage and get 5 points for it. M-Sport driver Adrien Furmo couldn’t make it to Sunday’s first special because of the problems he had on the road section. Most likely, like on Saturday, it was the loss of engine power. The best of M-Sport was Gus Greensmith, who finished the Rally Sweden in fifth place.