“I have a lot of BMWs... almost every M3 except the E36”

Kalle Rovanperä isn’t like other racing drivers. Last year aged just 23, he became world rally champion for a second time… then dropped the bombshell that he’d be stepping back in 2024.

Partial programmes are nothing new in the WRC: the great Sébastien Ogier has been doing them ever since he chalked up world title number eight in 2021. But for someone so talented to give up the best car in the field so young? Unheard of.

What people don’t see is the years of work it took to get there. Kalle started rallying when he was seven years old, and by 13 he was competing; around the time he first came to TG’s attention by scaring a passenger witless in a Citroen C2.

“And after 15 I quit school, and I did everything for rally. Full seasons, 17 races per year or even more. So yeah…” he tails off and laughs. “Even if I've done it [only] four years in the highest category, I've still done almost all my life rallying. It's a long time.”

The WRC programme is hard. Okay, next season’s 14-event schedule has got nothing on F1’s 24-race calendar, but the travel, commitment and exertion all adds up.

“The rally weeks are really tough, in a way which is not like any other sports, I would say,” explains the Finn. “We go from Monday to Sunday the full week. Rally days can be super long if we do days waking up 5am. Sometimes earlier.

“And then we have the recce videos.” Drivers go out before every rally to study the roads - while they’re still open to the public - collecting footage to analyse along the way. “You need to do it if you want to be fast. And you can work on the videos until 12am. And you sleep like four or five hours from Thursday to Sunday. So in that sense, it's just not so enjoyable anymore.”

Is it too much? “Yeah, it's… a bit close to being too demanding.”

So when Rovanperä backed up his status as the WRC’s youngest ever champion by defending his title in 2023, he knew it was time to take a break. “Still some people don't understand it. But most of the people close to me were like ‘yeah, for sure that's a good idea’ when they thought about it.”

So what’s he been up to with his time off? Riding more bikes, including motocross, and chilling with friends and family, he says. “And then of course I went to do this circuit racing in the Porsche Cup.”

Ah, about that. Not many rally drivers swap mud, snow ‘n’ gravel for asphalt with much success, but Kalle Rovanperä… isn’t like other racing drivers. He hopped into a 911 GT3 at the Porsche Carrera Cup in June and finished fourth on his debut. A few weeks later in Imola he grabbed pole, and then won. No wonder there were whispers in the Rally Finland service park this weekend of a potential F1 test. Just gossip, of course. But you wouldn’t put it past him.

Is track racing a big ambition for him? “Yeah, I would say definitely the circuit racing side is the biggest of all the other interests, let's say. That's like the next thing for me. I want to see if I can keep progressing.” Is a permanent switch on his mind? “For sure not now when we still have full plans with Toyota,” he says. “But yeah, definitely I can see it at some point happening.”

Rovanperä will be back for a full campaign next year, with “all bets” on a third championship in 2025. Mathematically he’s still in with a shout this year, having chalked up three wins already. After chatting to TG in Jyväskylä he came agonisingly close to a fourth, only to hit a rogue rock on the penultimate stage. Roll, crash, DNF. And a maiden home victory snatched away for at least another year. Ouch.

That's how disaster struck for the rally leaders on SS19 😱 (Crew OK) @KalleRovanpera / @JonneHalttunen @TGR_WRC #WRC | #SectoRallyFinland 🇫🇮 pic.twitter.com/4UoX35s0cP

— FIA World Rally Championship (@OfficialWRC) August 4, 2024

But come what may, he’s sticking to the plan. “If I would try to do all the races [left] this year, then I don't have much benefit of taking half [a] year off. So I don't really care about that. I care about how I feel myself more.”

And dominating like Sebs Ogier and Loeb - owners of 17 world titles between them - isn’t the long-term goal either. “I'm sure I'm not going to catch them. I know I'm not going to be doing it 10 years in a row probably.”

One thing he and Ogier are level-pegging on: each has a GR Yaris named in their honour. Kalle tested a few prototypes last winter and his feedback led to the Rovanperä Edition getting a Donut Mode (self-explanatory) and a Kalle Mode for 10/10 drifts. But of course.

“It was really cool,” says Kalle of the project, “and it's really amazing to have your own name on a basically factory-built car like that. So it's a big thanks to Akio [Toyoda] for liking rally so much.” With production in full swing his own example should arrive “quite soon”, and it’ll sit next to his Corolla GR Morizo Edition in his garage.

We’ve got to ask… is there anything else in the collection? “I do own quite many cars actually,” he confirms. “There is some old JDM cars: RX7, Supra, GT-R, 200SX. Then I have a lot of BMWs... almost every M3 except the E36. I'm still looking for one to complete the M3. And then a few M5s.

“Then I have some old classics, like old Toyotas. Mark 1 or Mark 2, Hilux and Corolla. And then yeah, some other cars also on top of that.”

Imagine that, a modern day world champion who’s properly into his cars. But then… Kalle Rovanperä isn’t like other racing drivers.