LAPLAND BECOMES LAPPILAND
The Arctic Rally is one of those mythical events in the sport’s history: a name that ranks alongside the Midnight Sun, the Tour of Mull and the Liege-sofia-liege.
It’s always short, around 150 miles in competitive distance, and the 10 stages laid on for its WRC visitors amounted to this distance almost exactly.
On the inaugural running of the event, back in 1966, the crews had to contend with temperatures as low as -54C. Fast-forward 55 years, and in general the thermometer stayed rooted a degree or two either side of freezing point.
The main similarity between the Arctic Rally of 1966 compared to that of 2021 was that both were very strong events for Volkswagen drivers. Kari Sohlberg was crowned victor of the inaugural event at the wheel of a Beetle, while modern R5 Polos featured heavily in the action from both WRC2 and WRC3.
In WRC2, the service park was delighted to see a return for Esapekka Lappi, the former works Toyota and Citroen WRC driver. He was last seen rather tearfully quitting the sport on last December’s
Rally Monza after a frustrating season as a privateer with M-sport, but returned on home ground to stake his claim upon any potential seats for 2022. Driving a Movisport VW Polo, Lappi was peerless throughout the weekend, winning eight out of 10 stages to seal class victory.
There is a Finnish expression to describe idyllic contentment: punainen tupa ja perunamaa, meaning a red cottage and a potato field. Red cottages were much in evidence in Lapland and possibly even some potato fields nestled beneath the snow – certainly Lappi was in his happy place once again. “I don’t know how to describe it for people who haven’t driven a rally car,” he enthused. “It feels so great and the conditions are so good.”
The man he beat was another WRC refugee, Andreas Mikkelsen, who last month declared his ambition to dominate every event in his Toksport Skoda as a means to force his way back into the top flight. But domination was harder to come by in Lapland than he found in Monte Carlo. Mikkelsen could console himself with strong points for second place and a maximum score of bonus points from the powerstage, but in the commentary box the reigning WRC2 champion, another former WRC driver, Mads Ostberg, delighted in teasing his countryman before he too returns to the fray later this season.
“I think Andreas was maybe shooting a bit in my direction when he did some of his interviews at the start of the year,” Ostberg joked. “He wants to dominate, he don’t want to think about the championship. Well, I think now he has to think about the championship! He cannot keep up with Esapekka, so I’m glad to see that he is starting to use his head.”
There were fewer fireworks in WRC3, in which Teemu Asunma’s Skoda held out over the VW of Egon Kaur to win by 4.2s.