There’d be nothing unexpected about a Rovanperä win in Sweden this week. But rewind the clock back to February 2001, and the same could not be said.
Kalle was just four months old then – so even for a driver who started as young as he did, this story isn’t about him. Instead it was his father, Harri, who was about to deliver from the get-go having finally earned his big break.
A key pillar of Seat’s World Rally Championship program in the late ’90s, Rovanperä found himself dropped by the Spanish outfit for 2000 in favor of Finnish compatriot Toni Gardemeister and 1994 world champion Didier Auriol.
“My contract was finished with Seat at the end of 1999,” Rovanperä tells DirtFish. “And for 2000, I didn’t have a factory seat. That is a boring year, of course!”
But it proved to be revolutionary. With Toyota’s WRC program ending after ’99 (hence Auriol’s availability on the driver market), private outfit Grifone got hold of a Corolla WRC for hire – and this would prove Rovanperä’s savior.
Fourth place in Portugal and third in Finland reminded the rallying world what he could really do, and suddenly talks opened with the reigning manufacturers’ champion for 2001.
Rovanperä earned himself a Peugeot contract with drives in a rented Corolla
“Peugeot contacted me and asked what I was doing the next year, 2001,” Rovanperä remembers.
“And that is not a big meeting, because Marcus Grönholm liked [the idea of] me inside the team – thanks to him!
“I don’t remember which rallies [were agreed], but our first deal was only for a few rallies, that’s all, and the first was Sweden.
“I had one test day, and then the Swedish rally is starting.”
Peugeot team manager Jean-Pierre Nicolas had quietly tipped Rovanperä to be a contender for victory, but to do that he would need to beat world champions Colin McRae, Richard Burns, Carlos Sainz, Tommi Mäkinen and of course his own team-mate: Grönholm.
That faith could not have been widespread, as Rovanperä was not one of Peugeot’s nominated manufacturer scorers in Sweden. Instead he drove with #16 on the door, with Grönholm in #1 and Auriol #2.
Rovanperä himself admits today he can’t remember what his precise expectation of himself was, but he can recall feeling immediately happy aboard the 206.
Rovanperä immediately felt comfortable in the 206 WRC (pictured here in 2002)
“Of course, it’s a big year to come in the best team at that time,” he says. “I tested one day in Sweden before the rally and the feeling was really good, really good.
“OK, like you said before, I can’t remember exactly, but I had a very confident feeling before the rally, [although] I don’t remember what I was wanting for the result.
“To keep the car on the road was one thing like always but I remember the feeling was really good and I liked fighting with the top guys again.
“Everything just worked well and the feeling inside the car was good; straightaway it’s a feeling like that I can do what I like.”
And straightaway, Rovanperä’s rivals realized he meant business.
Grönholm took the early lead after stage one but lost it as quickly as he had gained it: the engine on his 206 crying enough – a similar problem he had experienced in Monte Carlo.
But Peugeot still had a lion in the fight: Rovanperä won just his second stage for the team and assumed the rally lead.
Sweden 2001 would prove to be a massive ‘what if’ for both the Brits – Burns and McRae experiencing their own separate offs into snowbanks, and winning a combined 13 of the event’s 17 stages thereafter.
Burns was mighty fast in Sweden, but lingered down the leaderboard after an error on SS2
Neither, though, would be a factor in the fight at the front. That was left to McRae’s Ford team-mate Sainz, and the Mitsubishis of Mäkinen and Thomas Rådström. Sainz led at the end of leg one, but would fall backwards over the second day as the first car on the road sweeping the loose snow.
It was Rovanperä who therefore led at the conclusion of the second leg, and consequently faced the dubious honor of going first on Sunday. But the then 34-year-old was happy to do that – acting against advice from Sainz.
“I remember Carlos telling me that tomorrow [Sunday] it’s snowing a lot – don’t go the first on the road for the last day,” Rovanperä shares.
“But I’m pushing. I say ‘f***ing hell, I’m leading now and I need to take some gap anyway and it doesn’t matter tomorrow. We will see tomorrow’.”
It was a brave move, but one perhaps to be expected from a driver fighting for their very first WRC win.
And somehow, Rovanperä made it the right move with a breathtaking drive on Sunday morning. Despite fresh snowfall, Rovanperä defied common rallying logic and boosted his lead from 7.3s to 17.2s over just two stages. With only three tests left, he looked an overwhelming favorite for victory.
But then he made a mistake.
“I was not going on the right tires in the last stages, last loop,” he explains. “I was going on ice tires because I’d never tested the Peugeot with the snow tires.
“Tommi was pushing very hard with the snow tires and our gap was not so big. But in the end, everything was OK.”
Mäkinen came back at Rovanperä on SS15, but Rovanperä reversed the tide on SS16. Heading onto 17th and final stage, Hagfors, Rovanperä’s lead was 18.6s.
Given most of his expected title rivals had had a bad weekend, hindsight would suggest Mäkinen should have made a different decision. But as it was, he put the foot down and got it wrong – losing the line and spearing off into the snow, hitting a tree.
Victory was Rovanperä’s.
“I have had many, many good days and memories of rallies, but of course, everybody remembers that,” he says. “That was the best moment in my rally career, for sure.”
Unfortunately, it would prove to be the only win of his career – but what a way to do it. First rally with his new team; first win.
Rovanperä had the ability to win more rallies, but Sweden 2001 stands as his only WRC win
“I would have liked to have won a lot more rallies, of course,” Rovanperä reflects. “I remember leading many rallies, but always some technical issue, whatever happens. I don’t know why it was so difficult.
“It would look very good at the beginning of the rally, but always something happened. On my side sometimes, but technical things plagued the game too many times and that’s it.
“But I’m happy with my career. I tried the best always and it’s going like it’s going.”
Winning isn’t a feeling the Rovanperä family is generally starved of today, of course, with two-time world champion Kalle recognized as the talent of his generation.
But Rally Sweden does remain the one WRC event Kalle has not won more times than his dad, as both have one victory apiece.
“The fact my son has also won this rally is great,” Harri concludes.
“That is a really special feeling. Really special feeling.”
Father nor son would be upset if Kalle nudges ahead of Harri on Rally Sweden’s roll of honor come Sunday.
