Finnish rally legends on why WRC Finland always excites

It’s estimated that roughly 20% of Finland’s population watch the rally in some shape or form (the equivalent of having 13 million viewers of Rally GB), but Vatanen thinks that the sport used to be even more permeated into Finnish culture, which was the key to its success.

“In my day, we used to meet so many people on the way: stopping in houses for countless cups of coffee, giving people rides during tests and the recce,” he said. “Especially schoolchildren: I remember once we stopped at a school and gave every child a ride in the rally car! We tested so much then and had a lot of time to prepare for the rally. Still now, I get people coming up to me all the time saying: ‘I remember that you serviced in front of my house once’, and it’s really nice. The modern drivers don’t have that contact any more.”

Mikko Hirvonen – one of the stars of rallying right up to 2014 – won Rally Finland just once, in 2009: the year that he missed out on the world title by just one meagre point.

“Winning Rally Finland was definitely one of my proudest moments,” he said. “Of course I grew up hearing about people like Markku and Ari, so I still find it incredible to be on the Rally Finland’s winners’ list with them. It’s such an intense rally, with so much pressure, and actually, after I won Finland, it gave me so much confidence for two or three years afterwards as well: I felt really strong there each time, but I never won it again. And in many ways that makes it even more special because you realise: ‘f***ing hell! It’s actually not so easy to win in Finland after all.’ It’s true that there are some places when you look back afterwards and it doesn’t even make any sense: you wonder how you managed to get round there at that speed without crashing.”

One of the retired drivers for whom Rally Finland means most, especially this year, never actually triumphed on his home event at all, although he led it on countless occasions throughout a 13-year career, only for something to go wrong.

Harri Rovanperä is one of the nicest guys who ever graced those rollercoaster stages, with a best result of third in 2000, but these days he’s better known as the father of Kalle Rovanperä: Finland’s most exciting young talent, who already has two wins behind him, aged 20.

“It’s much tougher being a dad than being a driver on Rally Finland, but it's more rewarding,” said Harri. “Kalle has such a big heart for rallying, so you worry – not about him, because he’s a sensible boy – but about something going wrong. I never won Rally Finland, but if I could choose between him winning Finland and me winning Finland, I would choose it for him, definitely.”

If Kalle has a big heart, it’s clear where he got it from. And Harri is in a unique position to observe how the challenge on Rally Finland for young drivers has changed over the years. “I wouldn’t say it’s easier or more difficult: just different, and that’s down to the cars. The speeds are much higher: if we had gone at those speeds, we would be in the trees! But the character of Rally Finland is the same. You have to be incredibly precise and the margins are so small. If you drop a lot of time, it’s impossible to get back.”

Harri has forgotten about 2001, though. He was leading on the first day before dropping time with damper issues. He then made up 55sec on his team mate Grönholm by the finish. “Marcus was probably the biggest guy for me to try to beat in Finland, but I never thought too much about it,” said Harri. “In the end, we all eat the same thing for breakfast…” Who knows if that’s a Finnish saying, but it perfectly captures the can-do attitude of Finland’s rallying heroes and their pragmatic embrace of competition. Legends are there to be toppled; records to be broken.