Jari-Matti Latvala, currently the Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT team principal, will be putting his leading role on pause as he will be entering his home round of Rally Finland on 3-6 August in a fourth Toyota GR Yaris Rally1.
Latvala competed last time in the FIA World Rally Championship in 2020 at the Rally Sweden round in a privately entered Toyota Yaris WRC but he had to withdraw from the rally quite early on due to a technical issue on stage five and now he will make a one-off appearance in a Rally1 car for the first time, he has hinted a long time that he wanted to try one in competition.
In Finland, Latvala will be joined by Juho Hänninen as his co-driver, Hänninen is also a former works driver for Toyota same as Latvala, Hänninen has since retirement only focused on being the test driver for the team but in between that he has also sat beside Latvala on several outings with Latvala´s private Toyota Celicas in historic rallies.
However, Latvala will not be doing a double role in Finland. Akio Toyoda, the chairman of the Toyota Motor Corporation, will stand in for him.
