Very few beat Jari-Matti Latvala head-to-head on his home event, especially through Ouninpohja. But this guy did.
Then six months later in Sweden, the 27-year-old efficiently did the business and shaded former M-Sport and Hyundai driver Teemu Suninen.
Two of Finland’s former World Rally Championship frontrunners have now been felled by one of its up and comers: Roope Korhonen.
“Yeah… the situation is quite fun,” Korhonen smiled. “A bit the same as last year in Jyväskylä when we fight with Latvala. So, yeah, it was a good and nice fight with Teemu. Luckily we did a bit better job.”
In an all Finnish podium in Sweden, Korhonen and co-driver Anssi Viinikka stood tallest
Korhonen has been a prospect in the world championship for a few years now, first making the headlines when he won the WRC3 title in 2023.
A good friend of Finland’s last World Rally champion, Kalle Rovanperä, Korhonen stepped up to a Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 for 2024 before he reached the top step of WRC2 at Rally Finland 2025.
Coupled with a partial European Rally Championship program, where he won Rally Hungary and led the championship despite missing an event, last season was when Korhonen truly announced himself.
Big things are therefore promised in 2026, and he’s already begun to deliver.
A Finn succeeding in Sweden is hardly breaking news, but the manner in which Korhonen did it was telling. The entire event was managed to perfection, despite a rookie error on the very first stage.
Korhonen was completely in control in Sweden
“Yeah, only one mistake in stage number one, we stalled the car,” Korhonen told DirtFish. “But after that, really clean rally and no mistakes at all, and car and team did a really good job. So, a good weekend.”
The result instantly gives Korhonen and co-driver Anssi Viinikka the joint-lead of WRC2 with Monte Carlo winners Léo Rossel / Guillaume Mercoiret.
The plan for the year is to stay there, and the Finn appears to have all the ingredients: plenty of pace, solid experience and the car and team combo (Printsport Toyota) that won the WRC2 title in 2024 and 2025.
Not that he’ll be drawn into such talk. When it was put to him that he’s one of the favorites for the title, Korhonen immediately just shrugged his shoulders.
“No, no pressure at all,” he said. “This was the first rally of the season, so too early to say something like this. But yeah, let’s see. Of course, this is our target: to fight for the title.”
To do so, he’ll need to overcome some serious talent in double WRC2 champion Andreas Mikkelsen, 2022 WRC2 champion Emil Lindholm, former Rally1 driver Gus Greensmith, the works Lancia drivers Yohan Rossel and Nikolay Gryazin, fellow future talent Robert Virves… and that’s naming just a few.
But there’s little, to no, evidence to suggest that Korhonen isn’t capable of regularly doing – as he’d say – a bit better of a job.
“Of course, we always try to improve and learn things,” he surmised. “Now everything went really well, so the result was good.”
