Nursing an injured foot from an accident on the recce, and fighting the daunting fact that no non-Nordic driver had ever won in Finland, the odds weren’t exactly stacked in Carlos Sainz’s favor in 1990.
Leading the world champinship after victories in Greece and New Zealand, and a second place in Argentina, El Matador didn’t need <i> to win either. Especially when the throttle cable on Juha Kankkunen’s Lancia broke.
But with Ari Vatanen chasing him down, and a manufacturers’ title to also consider for Toyota, Sainz pinned his foot to the floor, and he won.
Fast forward 36 years, and the two-time world champion had a small part to play in Spain’s latest success in Jyväskylä.
Sainz became the first non-Nordic driver to win Rally Finland (then the 1000 Lakes) in 1990
Last Sunday, the only Spanish driver on the entire 61-car entry list, found himself 3.2 seconds behind Leevi Lassila after 19 of the 20 stages, having just surrendered 12.1s to his Finnish rival on the first pass of Himos-Jämsä.
Eighteen-year-old Gil Membrado needed to dig deep. But he had just the right man to call.
“I received a last-minute call with Carlos before the last stage,” Membrado told DirtFish. “He said to me: ‘You have to push, you have to go through there.’ And so we did it.”
Membrado knew he’d had a good run, but he couldn’t be sure if it was enough. Out of the car, waiting for Lassila to complete the final test, his phone was in his hand like a flash as he studied the split times.
“I was in the stop control, looking at my phone, because I did a good stage,” Membrado explained. “I was five seconds quicker in the last split, but in the last downhill, I had two mistakes and I didn’t know if I would win or not.
“I was checking the phone, checking the phone, and for two seconds, we take the win.”
Membrado felt he proved to himself he belonged in WRC with his win
Utter jubilation.
Membrado ran to co-driver Adrián Pérez and broke the news to him with by lifting him into the air.
For Lassila, it was despair. He had nothing to say.
Membrado did, however: “It was very, very tight with Leevi,” he said. “I also have to congratulate him because he did a really good rally, but two seconds of difference.
“It’s a really good result for us,” he added. “Victory, first victory here in Rally Finland, the only Spanish crew in the whole rally, so to take the victory here, it’s very special for us.”
Membrado even went as far as to admit that this victory helped him feel like he actually belonged in the WRC, having spent his career in Spain – and becoming national champion as a teenager in a Rally2 car – prior to 2026.
The result leaves Membrado third in the Junior WRC standings and 24 points adrift with one round to go: the double-points finale in Chile.
“That’s really good because it’s all open,” he confessed. “And it’s also good because no drivers of the Juniors has competed there. So it will be a really good rally, I think.”
But it’ll be hard to top Finland – where Sainz may have just passed the baton onto Membrado.
“For sure. I was more confident with his call,” Gil smiled.
