Onboard rally video of the day - Harri Rovanpera with Mitsubishi Lancer WRC at Rally Australia
Hi, friends!
Last few years I wrote about Finnish youngster Kale Rovanpera probably at least once per week. Kid is a super talent and he already won two WRC rallies with Toyota this season.
Today we are going into the past to meet his dad Harri Rovanpera who used to be a works driver for Peugeot, Seat, Mitsubishi and semi-works driver of Škoda.
His best days were with Peugeot and he scored his only win at Sweden Rally 2001 with the team. But I remember this guy in the late '90's when he drove in F2 class for Seat. He was really destroying the opposition with Seat Ibiza F2 kit car. That car was really amazing. That is probably the reason why I bought my Seat Ibiza in February last year.
Seat booted him badly after all he did for them in the F2 era (he helped them to win the F2 title and that wasn't enough for them to keep him).
But there were other teams interested in his services, most of them Peugeot who needed a top gravel specialist which Rovanpera sr really was.
I never understood why they never gave him a full season in a factory car. He did some tarmac rallies but always under Bozian Racing (satellite Peugeot team from that time). I guess the reason was because they had top all-surfaces drivers like Marcus Gronholm, Richard Burns, Markko Martin or Francois Delecour in the start of their WRC era.
So Rovanpera was always kind of a 3rd driver. That's why he signed with Mitsubishi for 2005 and that was his last full works year in the World Rally Championship. Mitsubishi Motors pulled the plug on their motorsport activities and they never again show in WRC again after that 2005.
The last event of that 2005 was Rally Australia where we could see the battle of Colin McRae (Škoda) and Harri Rovanpera. I was McRae's top fan at that time but he retired after bad Škoda crew service. So Rovanpera finished 2nd overall just behind Francois Duval who won in Citroen Xsara WRC.
Here we have an onboard of Rovanpera sr from that rally, the last one for Mitsubishi in the World Rally Championship. Please enjoy...
Credit for photos and videos to WRC and Youtube
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