How Rally Finland produced a rollercoaster of emotions to match its roads

A long-awaited home World Rally Championship victory for Kalle Rovanpera seemed almost assured last weekend, right up until the moment the Toyota driver rolled into the trees on the penultimate stage. A tough, weather-affected event produced plenty of drama and a surprise winner, who now has an outside chance of mounting a title assault

At last it seemed that Finnish rally fans would finally receive what they had craved so much. Not since 2015 has there been a home winner of Rally Finland. But still the wait goes on.

Kalle Rovanpera had dominated the stages and tamed changeable weather on what was one of the most demanding editions of the event on record. But once again, he was cruelly denied. This time, penultimate stage heartbreak allowed fellow Toyota part-timer Sebastien Ogier to steal the spoils and mount an unlikely World Rally Championship title push.

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Author Tom Howard

Tom Howard is a News Editor working across both Autosport.com and Motorsport.com websites. Starting out as a sports reporter in local newspapers, Tom focussed on motorsport covering several national championships in the UK, including the BTCC.

After a period working as a freelance journalist, Tom moved to Australia in 2013 landing a job at leading Australian motorsport news outlet speedcafe.com, covering international motorsport events including F1, WRC and Supercars. Progressing to Editor in 2017, Tom was named Motorsport Australia Journalist of the Year for his work. He is also a two-time winner of Supercars Journalist of The Year (2017,2019) and a Supercars Championship Media Award winner in 2019.

Tom moved back to his native UK in 2020, firstly working in BTCC, before joining Autosport and motorsport.com in 2021.