Kalle Rovanperä became the youngest ever FIA World Rally Championship champion last year when he clinched the world title in Rally New Zealand at the age of 22 years and 1 day old, which was the most perfect birthday present. Now he is returning to the Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT team this season and will defend the title starting with Rallye Monte-Carlo next weekend.
Rovanperä won two titles in the Latvian Rally Championship during his early career before stepping into the world scene in 2017. After two seasons in the support category, he became the 2019 WRC2 Pro champion at the age of 19 and was promoted to the Toyota factory team in 2020.
In 2021 Rovanperä set another record by becoming the youngest-ever driver to win a WRC event in the Rally Estonia and took another win in Acropolis Rally Greece the same year. In 2022 he took a hattrick of wins on all three surfaces starting with a win on snow in Rally Sweden, a win on the tarmac in Rally Croatia, and a win on gravel in Rally de Portugal. He also clinched three more wins that season, including the famous Safari Rally Kenya, a total of six wins which lead to becoming the 2022 champion.
He has not yet stood on the podium in Rallye Monte-Carlo as he has only managed to finish fourth, two times in 2021 and last year but this season he hopes he can take the win and set another record in the French Alps.
“My feeling is good before the start of the new season. We know that it will not be easy to defend the championship. We have seen that the competition level is getting higher all the time, so we need to try and raise our game also and keep pushing hard. The team is again doing a great job to try and maximise the performance and make the car faster and stronger.” Rovanperä said.
“Rallye Monte-Carlo is a special event, and usually makes for a bit of a tricky and nervous start to the season. But I’m more confident going into the rally than I was last year when everything was so new with the car; now I know that we should have everything in the right direction and be able to have an easier start. It’s never simple to have a clean rally there, but that will be our plan to begin the season in the right way.”
