VATANEN WHEN ARI MET RALLY
It was 1981 and the fight for the World Rally Championship went to the final round, the RAC Rally – all 65 stages and 450 miles of it. The season boiled down to a battle between points leaders Guy Frequelin/Jean Todt in the Talbot Sunbeam Lotus and chasing were Ari Vatanen/David Richards. It’s quite a story as the young Finn won the title.
To do a Q&A with Vatanen on his career and life would easily fill two copies of this publication. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of his World championship win, we will instead focus on his early beginnings and that 1981 season and its ups and downs.
Our very special thanks to the Royal Automobile Club who held a celebratory dinner for the winning duo, brilliantly hosted by Steve Rider. This is less than half of the chat that night.
There will undoubtedly be a part two to this Q&A, covering Ari’s following career, his horrific accident in Argentina that not only nearly cost him his life, but sent him into deep depression, his return to WRC, his amazing successes at Pikes Peak, his time as a European Parliament member, running for the FIA presidency against his 1981 rival Jean Todt. There is an awful a lot still to cover.
If you have a question for that, send it in.
For now, let’s stick to the beginnings – whenAri met Rally – and 1981, when, as he admits, despite himselfAri Vatanen won the World championship. Strap in!
Question: What was it that made you want to be a rally driver?
Ari Vatanen: “I will try to be short in my stories. More recently when I was a member of the European Parliament our speeches were limited to two minutes…. But now I can speak freely, and I have a lot of memories.
“In the summer of 1964, when I was 12, the rally came for the first time ever to my home village of Tuupovaara, for me the centre of the world. The rally came at 0200hrs, mid-June, so you can imagine in Finland at that time in mid-June, you have this fantastic summer light. It’s not really dark, but it’s not full daylight either.
“So when the family went to bed at 2200hrs, I took a bicycle, and I figured out there was a downhill left-hand corner, tightening, and I thought maybe that would catch out some drivers, so I sat there for four hours before the first car came. When the first car, a Volvo 544 with red hot drum brakes,
