The WRC heads to the Arctic
This week’s Arctic Rally Finland will bring the World Rally Championship into new territory. And almost without exception, the service park can’t wait
Kalle Rovanpera opens the door of his Toyota
Yaris WRC, thinks about getting out, then pulls it shut. It’s February, it’s minus 28C and he’s within the Arctic Circle.
Rovanpera is getting ready for the World Rally Championship’s latest addition, this week’s Arctic Rally Finland, and rarely has a new round of the series engendered so much enthusiasm, or attracted so many pullovers. But we should be clear here: the Rovaniemi-based event is a single-season stand-in for Rally Sweden, lost to the pandemic even before 2020 became 2021.
The plan is for the WRC’S winter qualifier to move west back into Sweden (and/or Norway, as has been its cross-border nature in recent years) from next season. But the Swedes will be painfully aware that the bar is about to be raised. It’s easy to bash their Torsby-based event for the lack of snow and ice (or even a hard frost this time last year), but it’s also worth noting – and not without significant irony – the foot-high snowbanks in Swedish Varmland this week. Rarely has the weather been a more fickle beast than now.
But for now, it’s all eyes on Finland and the first of two WRC 2021 counters within the borders of rallying’s spiritual home (Jyvaskyla’s summer festival of flying being the second). Technically, the WRC’S winter round is actually knocking on the door of spring, but it doesn’t matter when you’re just 1500 or so miles south of the
North Pole. “It will be warmer for the rally week,” said Rovanpera.
Incorrect, Kalle – it will be less cold for rally week. Temperatures should ‘warm’ to around -15C… “That’s still cold,” points out Elfyn Evans, last year’s championship runner-up and Rovanpera’s teammate at Toyota. “Minus 30 in the test was properly cold, but it was stunning as well. With the snow, the sun and the blue skies, it was fantastic to drive like this. The key is to stay in the car – there’s a big incentive here not to go off: you don’t want to be standing around in the middle of nowhere in those temperatures!”
According to the drivers, going off because you’ve run out of grip is less likely this week than on other events, which is ironic given how difficult it is to actually stand on your own two feet in such conditions. Much of the grip comes from the 384 7mm steel studs protruding from each Pirelli Sottozero, the single permitted tyre in Finland. But a significant chunk is also offered by the radical aerodynamics bolted to the current generation of World Rally
Cars. And here’s the thing: the colder it gets, the more aero grip is available. Cold air is, you see, denser than warm air. At -15C,
the air pushing down on the splitters, wings and diveplanes is heavier here than anywhere else in the season.
Hyundai driver Craig Breen can relate to that. “The grip is unbelievable,” says the Irishman. “Every year you go to the winter rally and have to think again about what you can do with these tyres – they’re just incredible. The good thing is, the more speed you have the more you’re forcing the stud into the road, and the more grip you’re getting from the tyre and from the aero.”
Fastest has always been best in Finland, and travelling north from Jyvaskyla to Lapland changes nothing. In fact, it’s entirely plausible that this week’s WRC counter could make history and become the fastest WRC round ever, eclipsing the 78.68mph record set by Kris Meeke when he won Rally Finland in 2016.
When Rovanpera tackled the Finnish Rally Championship round in these parts at the start of the 2020 season, he managed an average of 89.41mph for one stage. Could he make history this time around? “Maybe,” ponders the 20-year-old. “In some places it can be, but Rally Finland in the summer time is also really fast. There could be some technical places on the route in Lapland, but it is going to be fast. We will see this week.”
And speed shouldn’t be hard to find from the Yaris WRC beneath him. These should be some of the best conditions for turbocharged engines, with cold, dense air forced through the intercooler. But the WRC’S winter round does provide a unique technical challenge. Where else, for example, would a technical director sign off on a shovel being packed away into the boot. Granted, it will be the lightest shovel ever made, but it’ll be in there to help dig the car out, should the straight and narrow be deviated from.
Warm clothes, by regulation, are also in place, and 2017 Rally Finland winner Esapekka Lappi explains why: “If you are stopping because you crash or have a mechanical problem, you can be a long, long way from anywhere in this place – the phones don’t work
and you are just alone with the wolves. In times like this, you want to stay warm…”
Probably best keep the motor running and the wheels turning. And keeping them going means maintaining the air flow, which requires steering clear of the snowbanks. One of the most common causes of retirement on rallies like this one come when a driver goes headfirst into a bank, or just nibbles at the corner and forces powdery snow into the air intake. Having returned to the road, the 100mph-plus windchill soon packs the snow hard to block the air intake, strangling the engine and sending temperatures dangerously off the charts.
The drivers will keep a watchful eye on those warning lights, while the co-drivers do their bit to maintain the engine temperature too. Look into the cockpit of a factory car and you’ll see a reminder, ‘Blanking plate’, in the co-driver’s eyeline. These pieces of plastic are installed to block the intake when the car’s not in a stage and driving at competitive speed; the air is so cold it can damage the engine when the car’s trundling along road sections. It’s a codriver’s job to remember to put them in and take them out at the right time. Failure to do either can be rally-ending.
Ending this rally early will hurt more than anywhere else. Competing on a true winter rally with conditions as good as they are this week is something drivers wait a very long time for. Even Formula 1 stars Keke Rosberg, Mika Hakkinen, Kimi Raikkonen, Mika Salo and JJ Lehto have all contested the Arctic Rally, and more recently it’s Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas who has continued that trend. Bottas completed his third Arctic Lapland Rally last month, finishing sixth overall in a 2016-specification Citroen DS 3 WRC.
The Arctic Lapland Rally is the national event out of which this week’s WRC round grew. The stages are roughly the same, the organising team – to whom so much credit is due – pretty much identical.
Such is his love of the place and the competition, Bottas had hoped to be back in Rovaniemi for Arctic Rally 2021, take two. That was before F1 simulator work took priority. He has, however, left his
rallying colleagues in no doubt about what lies in wait. “I’m sure all the guys will love the place,” he says. “The stages are so unreal. You need to see and feel them to really acknowledge how beautiful this place is. It’s fantastic news and a really good thing for Finland.”
He’s not wrong. Lapland is beautiful and magical. Yes, it’s cold, but when the mercury dips down towards -30C, that’s part of what makes this place so special.
The World Rally Championship is a series that trades on taking its competitors to the extremes. To counter a piping-hot Mexico or sun-baked Sardinia, you need the deep freeze. Step outside in a service park based out of the car park at Santa’s place (Rovaniemi is, of course, the home of Joulupukki – Father Christmas) and you’ll understand what cold means. Britain’s had a fairly tough winter, with Scotland sporting nightly values of -20C, but it’s the sustained Arctic chill that ices the Lapland trees and creates breathtaking views of bright white against vivid blue skies. And the good news is, running later in February, there’s more daylight to play with. In the middle of winter the sun barely shows its face, but this week, provided it’s not snowing, we can expect the dream to come alive.
If it is snowing – especially for Friday’s two stages – expect Sebastien Ogier to be sacrificed as a high-speed snowplough. The Frenchman’s Toyota will sweep aside the worst of the powder, with every subsequent car creating a quicker line for those following. But when it stops snowing, those following can be caught in the strange Arctic phenomenon that is some sort of snow fog, which leaves the white stuff apparently hanging in the air. Get some strong sunshine strobing in and it can create havoc when you’re searching for an all-white, top-gear apex.
One thing is abundantly clear. Forget the threat of rain or the misery of mud – Arctic Rally Finland is ready to open the doors on a winter wonderland.