Co-driver: Miikka Anttila
Motoring Club organised an end-of-the-season rally. I got to drive an old Subaru because my -06 car was on its way from New Zealand to Italy. I drove the fastest time on stage one in group N and I was fifth in overall, but after stage two I had to retire due to an engine failure. Juha Kankkunen, a quadruple world champion, won the rally.
retirement
Subaru Impreza WRX STI spec C -05
Team: Motoring Club
Co-driver: Miikka Anttila
The hard-surface roads in Uusikaupunki are even which makes it hard to get differences in time. On stage one I lost 2, 5 seconds to Sebastian “Basti” Lindholm. I tried harder on the second stage but lost even more. After that I tried to ease my driving up but Basti just kept on increasing his lead. In the service after the fourth stage we changed the transmission which made the car better and we were able to drive the fastest time once, but not even that was enough for us to catch Basti. We did all we could but we finished second, 15, 5 seconds behind the winner.
2nd
Toyota Corolla WRC
Team: Latvala Motorsport Ltd
Competition engineer: Asko Kosonen
Neste Rally 2006 was driven with our own sponsorships from mainly Tuuri but also other regions of Finland. So we collected budget by ourselves and Asko Sairanen was my co-driver at this event. This is the only event that I have driven with Asko in WRC level. Our target was to pass the rally and get experience for the future. At the very first special stage we had some disagreements because of spin, but after that we got right mood. We tried our best and we were competing even for the 8th place, but we had also some technical difficulties. Tyre exploded at Ouninpohja and it got fired. We need to stop and extinguish the fire, it was quite close that whole car got burned. We managed to change the tyre but it took 3-4 minutes. We were dropped at the scoreboard quite a lot. After that we got oil leakage at the gear box and it caused another fire, but we managed with that. I don’t remember all the other difficulties but after all those we reached the finish at the 17th place. We got fighting spirit trophy. We decided to finish the rally, and so we did.
Co-driver: Miikka Anttila
It was +30 degrees when we started the 5th rally of the season. The heat was pretty hard for the cars. As early as on the first special stage we had problems with the breaks and we were four seconds slower than the stage winner. The next two stages went well and we were third, one tenth of a second away from the second place. On stage four we started having problems with the hydraulics. The problems lasted all the way to the finish line. It wasn’t easy to drive because the locks didn’t work right due to those earlier mentioned problems. Still we were able to finish second, but we had an unpleasant surprise waiting for us in the finish: we were disqualified because of an incident that happened on stage two. Our car died at time control and we were pushed aside by the organizers. That was against the rules according to the judgment of FASF.
Disqualified
Toyota Corolla WRC
Team: Latvala Motorsport Ltd
Competition engineer: Asko Kosonen
Co-driver: Miikka Anttila
Chief mechanic: Pekka Asunmaa
The roads were expected to be great in Valkeakoski, but because I was driving as the first car, I knew the roads would be slippery at least for me. This was in fact the case on the opening stage, where I ended up losing three seconds to the stage winner, Sebastian Lindholm. On the next three stages I was able to gain the gap but unfortunately only by 0,5 seconds. The differences in times were marginal and catching Lindholm felt like a lot of work. We seemed to have excactly the same speed. On stage five Lindholm increased the gap by nearly two seconds. On stage six I tried to catch him, and I achieved quite well until the last crossing where I made a stupid mistake. I came too fast to the crossing so that the rear end of the car spinned on the loose gravel. I ended up gidding the ditch for 50 meters until I was able to get the car back on the road. I lost some valuable seconds so that Sebastian was 1,7 seconds faster on this stage. The gap was 7,5 seconds when the last, a 21 kilometers long stage was left to drive. I pulled my best and didn’t make any mistakes this time, but Lindholm was a bit faster though. I was to settle for the second position on both the overall and the group competition with 8,1 seconds gap to Lindholm. Lindholm was better in Waltikka Rally but fortunately I maintained my lead in the series.
2nd
Toyota Corolla WRC
Team: Latvala Motorsport Ltd
Competition engineer: Asko Kosonen
Co-driver: Miikka Anttila
I kept up the same speed as in Mikkeli. I drove the fastest time on the first stage. One of my rivals Jarmo Mikkonen drove off the road on stage three. After that we were fighting for the victory with Sebastian Lindholm. Sebastian´s car died at the take-off on stage five and because of that I got a few seconds’ lead. The victory was secured in the finish of the last stage after a successful drive. The car worked perfectly and that is why I would like to thank the whole Latvala Motorsport service team (Pekka Asunmaa, Asko Kosonen, Jouko Halla-aho, Reijo Häkkilä, Marko Mäkinen, Jari, Mari and Helena Latvala)
1st
Toyota Corolla WRC
Service team Latvala Motorsport Oy.
Rally engineer Asko Kosonen
Co-driver: Miikka Anttila
The rally didn´t start very well when my co-driver´s in-helmet headset broke down on the first stage. Luckily Miikka thought of using the scrutineering headphones. He kept the helmet on and connected the scrutineering headphones to his helmet and shouted me the notes through the headphone turning the notebook pages with only one hand. A difficult task but Miikka got through it very well. Fortunately the incident didn´t affect our speed. We had built up a lead by the time we returned to the first service but the difference in time to the second place with Jarmo Mikkonen was very small. After service came stage four. That stage was 25 kilometres and it was a crucial one because we were able to pull a ten second gap over Jarmo Mikkonen. Mikkonen was the fastest on stage five and after that it was already time for a break. The contest was extremely keen at the beginning of the next stage but then it was suddenly over. Mikkonen drove off the road for over a minute. After this I only focused on driving to the finish without mistakes. This I managed to do and I celebrated the first victory in Finnish Championship.
1st overall, 1st in group A
Toyota Corolla WRC
Service team Latvala Motorsport Oy.
Rally engineer Asko Kosonen
Co-driver: Miikka Anttila
Friday 27th of January
The rally got a sticky start because changing from the mixture of Alps and coast to snowy Lapland wasn´t so easy after all. Furthermore incipient flu and fever weren´t helping the situation. Yet our speed was improving stage by stage. Our result was third overall and second best points in Finnish Championship. 3rd overall, 2nd in Finnish Championship
Saturday 28th of January
I started the attack in the morning. It was a successful morning and we achieved two fastest times. But then on stage ten we had too much speed in a tight turn to the left and we drove off the road deep into a snowdrift. And of course no spectators on sight to help us. After shovelling for one hour we got the car out, but the rally was over for us.
Retirement SS10
Toyota Corolla WRC
Service team: Latvala Motorsport Oy
Rally engineer: Asko Kosonen