LEARNING CURVE

gravel and also on the Te Akau stages.

‘‘When you have to clean the roads, that’s when you lose the most. So Kalle is in a difficult position for sure. If it rains, it might combine the surface together and it’s better and will be more equal.’’

Rain isn’t scheduled to arrive until after the stages are completed today, while the forecast for tomorrow is atrocious.

Also, there are only 88km of stages tomorrow, compared to 158km today.

Rovanpera¨ had a terrible time in the recent rallies in Belgium and Greece, where he was involved in incidents, but Latvala doesn’t feel his young prote´ge´e is suffering from nerves.

‘‘Kalle has had an incredible season up until Rally Finland. I knew that at some point the mistake would happen. It came in Belgium,’’ he said.

‘‘In Greece it was a frustrating situation. Everything had gone wrong in the test, then when we came into the event we didn’t have the performance.

‘‘That wasn’t easy for Kalle and the other drivers. But we’ve learned and know what we did wrong. So here, we should be competitive and that’s why I’m not worried about Kalle’s mental side, he’s very strong mentally.’’