Air Race On Four Wheels

We travel to the Grand Prix of Finland to watch cars fly.

- Sirish Chandran

FOR ME IT WAS clear that Meeke will win this rally.” 

This is no random spectator being pundit, no pundit being clairvoyant, this is Jost Capito, boss of the all-conquering Volkswagen rally team, a man so highly regarded that McLaren have poached him to run their F1 team next year, being rather forthcoming of a rival’s chances at Rally Finland. And gloomy about his own. “When we came here, we were clear. We had no chance to win.”

So what the hell is going on in the World Rally Championship? How can the fastest driver, in the fastest car, not be in contention for victory? How can it be that a driver that isn’t even registered for the full championship, from a country that isn’t home to a single Rally Finland winner, driving for a team that isn’t even a full factory outfit, be in with a chance to win the most iconic, most prestigious rally of the season? It’s bizarre.

Kris Meeke, driving for Citroen, duly won the 2016 Rally of Finland – the fastest event on the calendar. He went in to the lead on day one, set the fastest times on Ouninpohja, the most iconic stage of the entire season, and stayed in the lead till the end of the rally. It was his second win of 2016; the same number as the unstoppable, untouchable, indisputable fastest-man-in-the- WRC, world champion Sebastien Ogier. Who, in the unlikeliest of fashions, beached himself in a ditch in a first gear hairpin. It was a spot where no drama would happen, consequently there were no spectators to help the car out and Ogier took 16 minutes to get going again.