The WRC beginnings of the Baltics’ first real star

The Baltic states have become a big part of rallying in recent years. Ott Tänak lifted the world title in 2019 and his home country of Estonia joined the World Rally Championship calendar the following year.

Neighboring Latvia hosted its first WRC round last weekend and the country’s star driver, Mārtiņš Sesks, has been making waves since his impressive top-class debut in Poland last month.

But it was Markko Märtin who blazed a trail for the likes of Tänak and countrymen Urmo Aava, Georg Linnamäe and Robert Virves to follow.

Märtin made his WRC debut at the wheel of a Toyota Celica Turbo 4WD on Rally Finland in 1997. He really began to make a name for himself after switching to a Toyota Corolla WRC, via a brief stint in a Ford Escort WRC, in 1999.

Märtin finished fifth on the Acropolis, his debut in the car. Over the next 18 months, he became a top-10 regular including a sixth-place finish in Cyprus the following year.

This image from the Girardo & Co. Archive captures Märtin and co-driver Michael Park pressing on over Cyprus’s notoriously rough gravel. The island’s tortuous twists and turns made it the slowest rally on the calendar and a grueling event for man and machine – as the Corolla’s right-rear seems to attest.

The red and white colors of Estonian Oil Service had become a familiar sight in the WRC as Märtin marked himself out as a star of the future. His former co-driver Toomas Kitsing was instrumental in securing EOS’s backing which continued even after Märtin made the difficult decision to bring British co-driver Park onboard for 2000.

Märtin’s outings in the Celica had done enough to secure some Toyota support via Leif Asterhag’s Swedish Toyota Team, which ran the Corolla. But beyond supply of the car itself, Märtin had to fund the operation, and without his local backers that would not have been possible.

Before the year was out, Märtin had attracted Subaru’s attention. His debut for the squad was short-lived, retiring with transmission failure on SS2 in Australia, and his 2001 season aboard an Impreza was also largely frustrating.

He would go on to win five WRC rallies with Ford and inspire the next generation of Estonian talent.