Twenty years ago today, Sébastien Loeb finished in the top 10 on a World Rally Championship round for the first time. His ninth overall on the 2000 Tour de Corse was, as we all know, an exceptional result for a former gymnast starting only his fifth ever WRC counter.
Same day, same year, Kalle Rovanperä arrived on planet earth.
Quite a cool coincidence? Stay on the line, it gets even cooler. The Toyota Corolla WRC Loeb was driving on the French island the day that Rovanperä Jr was born is precisely the same car (chassis 630 K-AM 608, originally built for Didier Auriol to win the 1999 China Rally) Kalle’s dad Harri used to finish third on the 1000 Lakes Rally 42 days earlier.
I like that as a way into a story to say happy birthday to Kalle – a 20-year-old who now becomes just a sensation rather than a teenage sensation.
It’s a moment worth marking though. The Rovanperä Jr story is one that’s captivated us all for the last 12 years. Odd as it is to be talking about the last 12 years of a 20-year-old rally driver’s career, it’s true. Remember the frozen lake? The Toyota Starlet? The child behind the wheel with blocks on the pedals?
That was an eight-year-old Kalle. Even in the winter of 2008, the natural talent was evident as the car was thrown from corner to corner and controlled beautifully on the throttle. Weight transfer was something Rovanperä learned while others were still watching Thomas the Tank Engine.
Once the furore had died down from that first film, it all went quite quiet for a few years. There was the odd snippet here and there about what Harri’s lad was up to and how his star was just about ready to start to shine.
Moving into his teenage years, a Citroën C2 R2 Max was delivered to replace the tired Toyota. Through 2014, he fought the good two-wheel-drive fight against a variety of BMW 328s and racey Renaults.
Seventh overall on the 2015 Rally Alūksne was a wake-up moment. He was inch-perfect in the C2 and came back to the Latvian opener 12 months later, having not long turned 16, and drove a Škoda Fabia S2000 to overall victory. And he didn’t just win it by a bit. He drove it like your average 16-year-old would attack the latest version of DiRT and won by a minute.
Kalle was on the road.
If 2016 started well, it ended incredibly well with an unforgettable World Rally Car debut. He finished the Bettega Memorial second only to current Toyota team-mate and world championship leader Elfyn Evans (both driving Ford Fiesta RS WRCs).
A year on and he came back and won it. This time it was fellow teenage hero Oliver Solberg making some of the headlines as he repeated Kalle’s feat with second on his own World Rally Car debut. Both beat current M-Sport Ford World Rally Team driver Teemu Suninen.
Seventeen and legal to drive on some roads, Rovanperä made his WRC debut at Rally GB. And immediately understood the size of the step he’d taken, when he slid off on the first afternoon filling his Ford Fiesta R5’s radiator with Myherin mud.
A fortnight later and a WRC top 10 result and maiden WRC2 win delivered – admittedly against a lean Rally Australia field.
From then, a two-year Škoda deal delivered more experience, more speed and more confidence.
But before he even signed for the Czech firm, the thinking is that his Toyota deal was done. Don’t forget, he tested a Yaris WRC in 2016. Aged 16. Admittedly, it was an endurance test in a very early car, but still…
Two events into his full-time factory Rally1 career and he was shoving team-mate – and six-time champ – Sébastien Ogier to one side as he rocketed to a powerstage win and maiden podium at Rally Sweden.
Were it not a puncture, it’s entirely plausible that he would have won Rally Estonia, his fourth WRC start in a Yaris.
It’s fair to say Rovanperä’s packed plenty into his teenage years. But that’s really just the beginning.
Happy birthday, Kalle.
Oh, by the way, much as I would love to take credit for the deep chassis analysis at the top of this tale, it comes courtesy of Mull Rally man Duncan Brown.
