THE LOCALS call it “Sisu”. The word itself doesn’t have a definite translation, but symbolises the fighting spirit the Finnish reckon you need to tackle what is widely regarded as the fastest and toughest rally on the World Rally Championship calendar.
Referred to as both the Essence of Rallying and the Formula One in the Forest, fans consider Rally Finland the most spectacular of the series, where fast and wide sectors marry narrow and technical gravel traps. But close your eyes and think Rally Finland, and you’ll probably picture high-speed, gravity-defying jumps – or “yumps” as they’re known locally – which require cojones of steel for both driver and navigator.
Yup, the eighth event of this year’s 13 fixture calendar is indeed a special one. It’s spread over four days along 360km of forest and lakeside; has no less than 26 traditional and new stages (some with Viking warrior-like names like Päijälä, Pihlajakoski, and Jouhtikylä); and was contested by 81 crews. Attending this event, which goes all the way back to 1951, is a sacred experience. It’s holy ground if you relish seeing a rally car making jumps up to 60 metres long, after it’s tamed a crest flat-out at 200km/h – all-the while screaming pure evil from its tailpipe.
The sound of these rally-bats in the air, with revs bouncing on the 8 500rpm limiter, echo through the tall green forests like ancient warfare – with the 250 000 strong supporters looking more like warriors than fans with their blue and white face-paint.
In no other WRC fixture do cars lift off as often as in the forests around Jyväskylä.
And as much as you think the driver has all the Sisu, remember that if the navigator doesn’t first predict the right flight pattern, the car will be turning trees into toothpicks.
Throw a few Flying Finns in the cockpit; add fans that firmly believe that to finish first, first you have to be Finnish; and this mother of all rallies becomes a sauna of national pride.
And boy did things heat up.
Carrying the hopes of the frenzied Finns was the Volkswagen team Finnish driver/navigator duo of Jari-Matti Latvala and Miikka Anttila, versus closest rivals and French team-mates Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia. Latvala set the pace on the Saturday morning by continuously pulling away from Ogier – until a pothole damaged a brake line in an afternoon stage, leaving Latvala with no braking power on the front-right wheel and costing him around 27 seconds of his comfortable lead.
The sun rose in the service park on Sunday morning to disgruntled (and hungover) Finns wondering if Latvala’s now-slim 3.4 second advantage over Ogier would hold over the final three stages. This took what was once known as the 1000 Lakes Rally to an epic closing-day finale, with two of the three stages high-speed, continuous-yump, forest thrillers.
Standing in the forest you could cut the tension with an axe, with both drivers pushing their 232kW/425Nm force-fed Polo R WRC cars to the absolute ragged edge. Watching them launch these beauties at the start of a stage, with wheels breaking traction before hitting 100km/h in under four seconds, is a delight. But seeing 1 200kg of metal soaring above your head, after it’s tackled a double-yump, tends to make you understand how hungry these rally pilots are for victory.
In the end Latvala sealed it with just 3.6 seconds over Ogier, ending a four-year Finnish-win drought in Finland and realising a perfect Rally Finland event. The final podium step was filled by Citroën’s Kris Meeke and Paul Nagle, who picked up just one fastest stage time at the event (the rest went to VW), and ended 50.6 seconds behind the winners. Latvala joins Finnish legends Timo Salonen and Ari Vatanen as a two-time winner of the event; while only four drivers from outside Sweden and Finland have won this event since 1950: Sébastien Ogier, Sébastien Loeb, Didier Auriol, and Carlos Sainz.
The result was VW’s twelfth consecutive win, and the German team could snatch the drivers’, co-drivers’ and manufacturers’ titles at the next event in Germany should the winning streak continue.
VW has dominated WRC since its entry into the sport last season, racking up 269 fastest times from 391 special stages, and has celebrated victory at 18 of the 21 events.