Kalle Rovanperä

Kalle Rovanperä (born 1 October 2000) is a Finnish professional rally driver who competes in the World Rally Championship (WRC) for Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT, alongside co-driver Jonne Halttunen.

He is the double reigning World Champion.

As the son of former WRC driver Harri Rovanperä, he garnered international attention by starting rallying at an exceptionally young age.

Rovanperä won two titles in Latvia, before making his WRC debut in.

In 2015, at the age of 14, Rovanperä competed in Latvia where having a driver's license is not a requirement to take part in rallying.

He won the Latvian rally championship with his Citroën C2 R2 Max car in the R2 class.

For the first three rallies of the 2016 Latvian rally series, Rovanperä drove a 300 hp four-wheel-drive Škoda Fabia S2000, which was a completely new WRC-2 class rally car with a two-litre naturally aspirated engine.

He won the first rally, setting the fastest time at every stage.

He finished as the runner-up the second rally despite a power steering issue.

Rovanperä switched to a new Škoda Fabia R5 following another second-place finish in the Kurzeme rally.

He scored four more podiums, including two victories for the rest of the season.

Rovanperä eventually won the championship and became the youngest driver ever to win a national open class rally championship in any country at the age of 16.

In January 2017, the Finnish motorsport association AKK-Motorsport granted a 16-year-old Rovanperä special permission to take part in Finnish rally races and the Ralli SM national championship series.

In addition to entering the rallies in the Finnish Rally Championship, he also participated in two other national championships: Latvia and Italy.

Rovanperä also made his European Rally Championship debut in 2017 by entering the Rally Liepāja, where he finished second overall.

He also successfully defended his title in Latvia by finishing every rally on the podium.

Having acquired his driving licence, Rovanperä made his WRC debut at the 2017 Wales Rally GB, driving an M-Sport-entered Ford Fiesta R5, as well as competing at the 2017 Rally Australia.

He won the event in the WRC-2 category, becoming the youngest winner of a WRC-2 round, though he was the only contestant in the class.

Rovanperä joined Škoda Motorsport for the 2018 season.

He recorded two victories at the 2018 Wales Rally GB and the 2018 Rally Catalunya, completing the championship third.

Rovanperä also contested some events in the Asia Pacific Championship series.

He won the World Rally Championship-2 Pro in 2019, and was promoted to the top tier by Toyota as their works driver in.

In, Rovanperä became the youngest driver to win a World Rally Championship event by winning the 2021 Rally Estonia.

In, he became the youngest ever World Champion after winning the 2022 Rally New Zealand a day after his 22nd birthday.

Rovanperä was born in Jyväskylä, Central Finland.

He is the son of former WRC driver Harri Rovanperä, who was a factory driver for several teams and won a WRC round in Sweden in.

He garnered international attention at the age of eight, when footage of him driving a rally car was uploaded to the Internet, and participated his first rally at just ten years old.

Prior to his participation in the professional championships, he was coached by many compatriots, including Esapekka Lappi, who commented that a young Rovanperä already knew as much as him.

Rovanperä was retained by the team for the 2019 season.

He took his first victory of the season at the 2019 Rally Chile, and took over the championship a round later at the 2019 Rally de Portugal.

He would go on to win three more rallies during the rest of the season and eventually sealed the title at the 2019 Wales Rally GB.

His only retirement of the season was at the 2019 Tour de Corse, where he crashed out during the ninth special stage.

In November 2019, Toyota announced that Rovanperä would drive for the Japanese manufacturer in, alongside world champion Sébastien Ogier and Elfyn Evans.

Rovanperä chose 69 as his car number.

He scored his first podium at his second outing in the top class at the 2020 Rally Sweden by finishing third.

At 19 years, 4 months and 16 days, Rovanperä became the youngest WRC podium finisher.

Rovanperä eventually finished fifth at the end of season.

Rovanperä's 2021 campaign started with a fourth at the 2021 Monte Carlo Rally and a second at the 2021 Arctic Rally Finland, which was enough to lead the WRC championship for the first time in his career.

Following a series of troublesome events, Rovanperä took his first WRC career victory at the 2021 Rally Estonia.

The victory saw him become the youngest driver to win a World Rally Championship event at 21 years and 289 days, breaking the previous record of 22 years and 313 days held by his team boss Jari-Matti Latvala.