The Finnish Rally Championship series will continue this weekend at the Mikkeli SM Vaakuna Rally, with more than 130 drivers.

Teemu Asunmaa, who finished last in the SM1 class, starts at Mikkeli as the leader of series. He won in Rovaniemi when Emil Lindholm crashed into a minor driving error. Lindholm will surely go hungry for victory. Juha Salo was also in good speed before he drove off road in Arctic Rally.  

But what will do second-in-class Eerik Pietarinen or the class new drivers Esa Ruotsalainen and Juuso Metsälä, we’ll see.

The North Karelians drivers start the race with seven pairs in Mikkeli.

In Rovaniemi they did not bring the desired result, many of them ended retirement. Some flashes of good speed were seen and in Mikkeli certainly everyone starts looking for a new, better start to the season

SM2 class Hannu Lamminen (JoeUA) as  Julle Laivolas (RiiUA) co-driver survived to position eight in Rovaniemi. Matti Heikkinen (K-KUA) will be co-driver for Jaakko Lavio (AUK Jämsän Äijät) in Mikkeli.

In SM3 class Joonas Huovinen (K-KUA) and Arto Romppanen (JoeUA) suffers “snow” and electrical problems open the season, but now this strikes back in Mikkeli.

For this class, Eero Räikkönen, Team Manager of Printsport, organized the

series for young drivers, the Printsport Junior Cup, with good prizes: E.g. tire support for the next season and as the best prize is R5 -car to one rally.

Huovinen is expecting result in top three in Printsport Cup

Jarno Kinnunen (K-KUA) will be seen in Mikkeli in this season’s renewed SM4 class (V1600 cars) and club mate Eeka Lahtinen, who will start in Mikkeli from the 7th place in the SM4 class. In Suomi Cup, Jani Lahtinen (K-KUA), who retired to technical reason in the opening in Rovaniemi of the season, is also starting in Mikkeli.

In Mikkeli will also start the Rally Finland Junior Championships, where in the opening competition will be seen in the V1600 class Heikki Hassinen (JoeUA) and Ismo Martiskainen (JoeUA).

Young drivers under the age of 18 can also competing in the Junior Championship. The series will be driven with V1600 cars and will be open to

driver who turns 15 years at 2020. We will see Akseli Kareinen (K-KUA) in this class.

And then after Mikkeli will be Itäralli 2020. There is no more time than just three weeks for the Itäralli and the arrangements are now in full swing.

We had to wait for winter in Joensuu until the last week of January, but now it starts looks good already. We have had snow for several days, making the gauges look almost 30 centimeter, and when writing this, temperature is almost  -12 degrees.

SM Itäralli  / Timo Louhelainen