Four-time World Rally champion Juha Kankkunen will return to the service park with Toyota next season when he joins Jari-Matti Latvala as deputy team principal.
The younger of the two Finns will contest the 2025 European Historic Rally Championship, limiting his availability for WRC duties. Toyota confirmed at a press conference in Nagoya on Monday that Kankkunen would replace him when he was busy driving his Toyota Celica Turbo 4WD.
Talking to DirtFish, Kankkunen admitted he was delighted to return to a role within the team where he started his WRC career.
“The team asked me to do this job of the team principal,” he said. “It won’t be for every round, Jari-Matti will start the season, but then it will be for the rest of the rallies. I said yes to them: ‘If I’m good enough and you accept me, then I will definitely be available.’”
Working closely with Toyota Motor Corporation chairman Akio Toyoda, Kankkunen has been a Toyota ambassador for the last few years. He also won his fourth and final world title aboard a Celica in 1993.
He continued: “I drove nine years in total with Toyota and Toyota was the first team to give me an opportunity to take part in the world championship. It’s a great pleasure to come and do this job. I was going to retire, but then they asked me to come back and I’ve been here for two years doing some demonstration work. I’ve been helping out where I can with the team and I’m very happy they asked me.”
Latvala shared those sentiments and admitted he was keen to see what this returning legend could achieve with the Jyväskylä-based team.
He told DirtFish: “I could never have imagined to work alongside Juha Kankkunen. I remember when my father took me to Juha’s farm for the first time ever, my hands were shaking when got to meet him.
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“I’m so glad we have him. We have already been working quite closely together, travelling together and eating together. This is a good time to talk. OK we are talking and thinking about the modern sport, but there were also a lot of good things back in the day. There are actually a few points which we can take [from Kankkunen’s era of driving] and things we could learn from these times.”
Latvala pointed to Kankkunen’s strong relationship with the drivers, adding: “Juha is always keen to hear the drivers’ comments and he works well with them. I’ve been telling him what are the targets we’ve been talking with the mechanics and rest of the team to make sure he gets to know everybody and everybody is comfortable with Juha in the team.”
The annoucement of Kankkunen’s addition to the team came alongside Toyota revealing its driver line-up for next season.
