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#13: Juha Kankkunen, four-time world rally champion

Changing from a rally driver to an ice-driving instructor wasn’t something I always thought would happen, it’s come a little bit by circumstance. My two children were born when I was still driving professionally. They would be in the car, in normal trafc, and I’d suddenly see how dangerously some people were driving in bad weather. I thought: “Bloody hell, my kids are there on the back seat, and some idiot could come and hit us.”

I started to build up a little idea of using my occupation as a rally car driver in another way. Not to teach normal drivers to become ready for the rally stage, but to make them a bit better than they are at the moment.

Snow is the most sensitive ground, where you really learn what a car can do, and when you lose control. It’s safe on a frozen lake, too. You can go of 12 times a day when the snow walls are only 10cm high. You simply tow the car back and try not to make the same mistake again.

We have a special school for bigger vehicles to help taxi, ambulance and police drivers too. All the professional trafc needs to learn winter driving as well, and they have to have a place where they can get an idea of how these big, heavy vehicles handle. If you don’t get the chance to come and practise up in Scandinavia, then you just have to use your brain; if it’s slippery or snowy, you have to drive slower and be more careful – that’s the only way. There’s no driver in the world who, if the road gets icy, can carry on driving at the same speed on summer tyres. Slow down, brake earlier and watch the trafc.

Winter time in Finland lasts six months, so I’d always be practising a lot on the local ice circuits. I’ve been living on the ice since I was born, basically, but I wouldn’t say it’s my favourite surface in rallying. I like everything. And there are so many cars I’ve competed in now, I’ve been driving over 100 years!

A few years ago, I drove the car when Bentley set an icespeed record, 205.48mph in a Continental GT. May I say, it’s not as easy as it looks. You have to know and feel the grip as it’s changing a lot. Ice is never fat, either – it’s always bumpy. You can jump into the air quite easily.

There are a lot of supercars that don’t even go that speed on the asphalt. Over 200 is fast, especially on a frozen lake, which has 10 to 15 per cent of the grip asphalt has. The good thing about the Bentley is that it’s heavy, a very steady car, with air suspension and big tyres. We tried with a Bugatti Veyron, but its suspension is too hard. Ice is so bumpy, the car starts jumping in the air and wheelspinning – you can’t get the speed as it’s just stuck there. The extra power isn’t any help if you can’t actually get it to the ground.

There weren’t really any hairy moments in the Bentley.

I had the wind blowing one time, quite heavily, and I was fully sideways at 300kph for 1.2km. That’s quite long sideways. I was OK, just full throttle all the time and it kept the car going. When the wind stopped, the car came straight. It’s like when you land an aeroplane in the wind you get quite a lot of sideways. On the asphalt it’s fne, but on the ice there isn’t much grip, so you get the same efect. But I’m happy to have another go at it; the record has been surpassed. I know I can go faster anyway. There’s always

something in reserve.

“Snow is the most sensitive ground, where you learn what a car can do”