When Rally Finland scared its biggest hero

There was only one term I was reaching for in Girardo & Co.’s photo archive this week. I make no apologies for it: Rally Finland fever has still got me.

This particular image is classic Finland. Car aloft, pointing skywards with beautiful finesse as the driver balances the throttle and braking inputs with exquisite precision to guarantee the perfect flight.

But it’s the story behind the image that I feel is worth revisiting.

Marcus Grönholm was the closest thing any World Rally Championship manufacturer could get to a legal cheat code in Finland during the 2000s. Across the decade, the big Finn only failed to win three editions of the event – and two of them he didn’t even do!

Although he faced a strong challenge from Mikko Hirvonen within his own Ford stable in 2007, Grönholm once again proved irresistible with a 74% stage win rate (17 from 23) and a 24.2-second margin of victory.

Hirvonen fancied a shot at revenge: “I don’t wanna wait until he retires. I wanna win Finland before that,” he smiled.

But the younger of the two Finns wouldn’t get that chance.

Grönholm had been weighing up his future over the WRC’s two-month summer break prior to Rally Finland in early August, and although his ultimate decision to call it quits was communicated in September, it was that Saturday over Ouninpohja that swung it.

He may have gone fastest, but the risks he had to take made him uncomfortable. Shaking at the end of the stage, Grönholm knew deep down that his time was running out. The desire to bow out at the top was also too great to resist and he jumped at it – at the time opening up a 13-point lead over Sébastien Loeb in the championship.

That third title would elude Grönholm, but in the 17 years since, nobody has achieved even half of the seven victories Grönholm recorded in Finland – a record he shares with the late, great Hannu Mikkola.