Defending World Rally champion co-driver Vincent Landais will miss this week’s Secto Rally Finland for personal reasons.
The 34-year-old’s absence from an event he won two years ago means a one-off return for Julien Ingrassia alongside Sébastien Ogier. The pair haven’t competed together since winning the 2021 Monza Rally to seal an eighth world title.
Ogier said: “I’m sorry that Vincent cannot be us for Rally Finland due to personal reasons.
“Of course, we still want to push for the best result possible for us and for the team, so I’m pleased that my friend Julien accepted the call to sit next to me one more time.”
Landais has been ruled out of Rally Finland for personal reasons
Since retiring as a professional co-driver, Ingrassia has remained active in the sport working with the media and in the role of chairman of the World Rally Drivers Association (WoRDA) – as well as competing as a driver himself.
Ingrassia added: “It is a great honor to get back in the car for this one rally to help Séb, Vincent and the team.
“It will be a big challenge but I’m looking forward to it.”
While he has been away from the WRC as a co-driver for five years, Ingrassia has immense experience with 168 starts at the sport’s highest level – all of them alongside Ogier.
Thirteen of those starts came in Jyväskylä, with five podiums and one win.
Ogier sits 38 points behind team-mate Elfyn Evans in the drivers’ championship. Landais’ enforced absence from Finland raises the prospect of drivers’ and co-drivers’ titles being won by different crews for the first time since 1993.
Juha Kankkunen won the drivers’ title that year but used three different co-drivers through the season. Juha Piironen suffered a brain hemorrhage just before Rally Argentina, where Nicky Grist stepped in. The Welshman remained alongside Kankkunen for all-but Rally Finland, where he was contracted to navigate Armin Schwarz with Mitsubishi. Denis Giraudet co-drove Kankkunen in Finland.
As a result, François Delecour’s co-driver Daniel Grataloup won the 1993 co-driver’s title.
