KALLE ROVANPERA LEAVES RALLY TO START ROAD TO FORMULA 1 CAMPAIGN
Two time Rally world champion Kalle Rovanpera has recently announced his departure from the off-road to switch to full-time single seaters from 2026.
Kalle, 25, has been competing in off-road events since he was 14, achieving 17 WRC wins from 2021 to 2025, with the season still in progress.
Since he joined the main WRC series in 2020, the Finn was part of the Toyota drivers’ program, and won two titles, in 2022 and 2023, being the youngest in history to accomplish that.
However, with Toyota’s heavy investment in single seater racing, Kalle has decided to pursue another childhood dream: race in Formula 1.
Rovanpera himself decided to leave the rally world at the end of this season through a statement in social media, and he will be moving to Japan and race in the prestigious SuperFormula championship, backed by Toyota.
The plan goes further than that: it is expected that the Finnish follows Ritomo Miyata’s plan to move to Formula 2 in 2027 after a season in Asia. The team would be almost certainly Hitech, since it has a technical partnership with TGR.
Previous experience in road racing
Kalle Rovanpera has already achieved some experience in road racing, by racing in the Porsche Carrera Cup Benelux in 2024, where he finished fourth in the standings racing 4 of the 6 rounds, winning a total of three races with two further podiums, never finishing outside the top 6.
This gives Kalle enough confidence to do the full transition to road racing and pursuit his dream to race in Formula 1, but initially, the plan is to stay in the feeder series until 2028.
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