Obituary: Hannu Mikkola
Among the titans who put the World
Rally Championship on the map through the 1970s and 1980s, few could challenge the versatility and leadership of 1983 title winner Hannu Mikkola, who has passed away at the age of 78 after a long illness.
The first deluge of international success accrued by Nordic talent such as Rauno Aaltonen, Timo Makinen and Pauli Toivonen in the early 1960s helped pave the way for Mikkola to usher in a new generation on the cusp of the world championship era.
Born in Joensuu in May 1942, Mikkola first entered a rally in 1963, and would remain on the national scene, balancing opportunities to compete with the demands of academic life. But after victory on the Tampere and Helsinki rallies of 1967, he elected to pursue an international programme the following year.
On the 1968 Austrian Alpine Rally, Ford rally boss Bill Barnett found his muchvaunted new Escort Twin Cams being chivvied by this unknown Finnish student. Mikkola finished second overall at the wheel of his privateer Lancia, and his works Ford debut followed a few weeks later on the 1000 Lakes. Driving a third car alongside Bengt Soderstrom and Ove Andersson, the newcomer claimed victory from Simo Lampinen’s Saab by three and a half minutes. After this, the Escort Twin Cam proved fragile and, aside from more success for Mikkola on the 1000 Lakes, Ford fell behind the competition.
Barnett was replaced by Stuart Turner, architect of the Mini Cooper’s glory years, and whose eyes were fixed upon the publicity value of the 16,000-mile World Cup Rally that was planned for 1970. Replacing the exotic Twin Cam with a bored-out Kent pushrod gave the car reliability, while having England footballer Jimmy Greaves in one of the team’s entries brought huge star power.
Mikkola’s victory and the subsequent Escort Mexico line of road cars sealed his place in the affections of successive generations of Ford enthusiasts.
In 1972, after another fraught season, Ford elected to throw all its efforts for the season towards the Safari Rally. Mikkola delivered, becoming the first non-african to take victory on the most gruelling of all annual events. But such successes were rare, and Mikkola grew disenchanted with Ford’s lack of consistent success. He was a free agent by the mid-1970s, and drove for Opel, Fiat and Peugeot, most often with Jean Todt co-driving.
These years of wandering ended at Toyota, where Mikkola forged a definitive partnership with Swedish co-driver Arne Hertz. Nevertheless, the Corollas and Celicas were not yet fully competitive, and a rapprochement was made with Ford for 1978, bringing five wins on British events.
In 1979, the inaugural WRC drivers’ title rapidly developed into a two-horse race between Mikkola and his team-mate Bjorn Waldegard. The Swede made the early running, but Ford shied away from the expense of contesting the two African events: the Safari and the Ivory Coast. It did, however, permit its drivers to tackle these events with Mercedes. Longdistance expert Mikkola was able to claw back some lost ground on Waldegard as a result, but lost out by one point.
In 1980, with Ford on sabbatical, Mikkola began to receive overtures from Audi Sport, which was developing its exotic but complex turbocharged, four-wheel-drive Quattro in preparation for a WRC campaign in 1981. Mikkola’s mechanical sympathy and economical cornering style were prized by the team in Ingolstadt but, although the Finn was impressed by their concept, he worried that the learning curve presented by so much ambition might prove too steep.
He agreed initially to act only as development driver through 1980, and enlisted the help of David Sutton’s team, which brought its hard-earned savvy as well as a competitive car from which to benchmark performance. The result of this development work was the Audi Quattro’s mythical debut as course car
on the 1980 Algarve Rally, which Mikkola completed half an hour faster than the winning Ford Escort of Antonio Zanini.
Unreliability plagued the Quattro through 1981, although Mikkola was proud to become the first non-swede to win the Swedish Rally, and ended the year with victory on the RAC Rally. In 1982, he drove the full WRC season with Audi Sport and the British Open in a Quattro prepared by Sutton. He and Michele Mouton were joined by Stig Blomqvist on selected
WRC events, and the trio delivered
Audi’s first manufacturers’ crown.
The following year, with the evolved Group B Quattros, Mikkola was declared team leader and swept to four wins and the title, including his seventh and final victory on the 1000 Lakes, a record only equalled by Marcus Gronholm.
Blomqvist was anointed as Audi’s title contender for 1984 and Mikkola was content to play a supporting role, dutifully following the Swede home in Monte
Carlo, the Acropolis, Argentina and Ivory Coast as they steamrollered the drivers’ and manufacturers’ crowns.
By 1985, Mikkola was largely phased out of Audi’s WRC programme in favour of Walter Rohrl, but he relished driving the monstrous, bewinged Audi Sport quattro S1 at any opportunity, resulting in victories on the Olympus Rally in the US and the Finnish Mantta 200. Another landmark win came on the inaugural
Hong Kong-beijing marathon, driving an ex-works Quattro for Andy Dawson’s team. Mikkola’s 18th and final WRC win came on the 1987 Safari at the wheel of the cumbersome Group A Audi 200 quattro, beating Rohrl in the sister car.
Four seasons in the WRC passed with Mazda before Mikkola stepped back from full-time competition. His last outing in the top flight came in 1993 on his beloved 1000 Lakes, finishing seventh in a works Toyota Celica. In 1995, Ford entered the 25th anniversary running of the Londonmexico rally with a Sutton-built Escort in which Mikkola won, and he would later delight crowds at historic events worldwide until ill health began to take its toll.
“What I remember is a friend, a colleague and a team-mate… always equal as him… a gentleman in this world, which was really appreciated,” Mouton told Autosport. “We really had a fantastic time. We laughed so much! He taught me how to drive with left-foot braking, but I also learned how to play golf with him, so we were really like a family.”
Autosport extends its condolences to Mikkola’s wife Arja, their children Juha and Vesa, and their four grandchildren.