Double World Rally champion Kalle Rovanpera is quitting the series to make a dramatic switch to single-seater racing, starting in Super Formula, in a shock move endorsed by his employer Toyota and in which he is targeting what it refers to as “the highest levels of circuit racing”.
In an interview with DirtFish, Rovanpera has expanded on Toyota's statement and made clear he has his sights set on progressing towards F1 via two years in Super Formula then a move to Formula 2.
Who is Rovanpera?
The 25-year-old Finn has only dabbled with circuit racing so far, including one-make Porsche races during his ‘gap year’ in 2024 - when after winning the 2022 and ‘23 WRC titles he temporarily switched to a part-time programme.
Rovanpera has long been regarded as rallying’s equivalent of Max Verstappen. Son of 2001 Rally Sweden winner and long-time factory WRC driver Harri Rovanpera, Kalle was well known in the rallying world right from his childhood thanks to viral videos of him flat-out in his father’s cars at an incredibly young age.
He was given a factory Toyota seat in the WRC’s top class at the age of 19 in 2020 and over the following three years became the championship’s youngest-ever podium finisher, youngest-ever rally winner and then youngest-ever world champion the day after his 22nd birthday.
“This decision has not been an easy one, but itʼs one that I have been thinking about for a while,” said Rovanpera, who is third in the 2025 WRC standings in a close title fight with Toyota team-mates Sebastien Ogier and Elfyn Evans with three rounds of this season to go.
“Having already achieved so much in rallying at this age, I started to think about what other possibilities I might have and what other challenges I would like to take on.
“It has been a tough decision, but it feels like the right one to pursue my next dreams and challenges.”
“Itʼs special to have the support of Toyota Gazoo Racing from the start of this new challenge and to be able to race in Super Formula. I know that itʼs jumping straight into the deep end, coming from rallying, but Iʼm really looking forward to it and together with TGR we have a good plan to prepare in the best way possible and to try and make the most of it.
“Since I started driving as a small kid, it was my dream to be a WRC driver, to win a rally, and to become world champion. To have achieved all that at such a young age has been an incredible feeling.”
What could happen next?
Toyota’s statement announcing Rovanpera’s bombshell move is light on specifics about the process ahead of him, beyond his next move being the Japanese domestic single-seater series Super Formula - whose cars are faster than their Formula 2 counterparts, and in which Toyota and Honda battle for supremacy. Toyota-powered Ritomo Miyata and Sho Tsuboi have won the last two titles, and Tsuboi currently leads this year’s standings too.
Outside rallying, Toyota’s main racing programme is in the World Endurance Championship, in which it dominated for many years but is currently on the back foot.
That would certainly offer Rovanpera one route to what Toyota calls “the highest levels of circuit racing” given its world championship status, ultra-competitive, manufacturer-packed field and headline event in the Le Mans 24 Hours. Prior to the 2026 Super Formula move, all Rovanpera’s circuit racing outings have been in GT cars.
But the fact Rovanpera is going into a single-seater series first and that “highest levels” terminology has to raise thoughts of a potential Formula 1 bid too. Especially given Toyota now has a partnership with Haas, one that’s already created F1 mileage opportunities for Miyata and fellow Toyota protege Ryo Hirakawa, plus Toyota’s ex-F1 racers turned team bosses Kamui Kobayashi and Kazuki Nakajima.
A long time Red Bull backed driver, Rovanpera tested its 2012 F1 car along with Formula 4 and Formula Renault 3.5 machinery at the Red Bull Ring at the end of last year.
Rovanpera was more forthcoming on F1 being his goal in his subsequent interview with DirtFish.
"Obviously at this point, I just know my next few years' plans. I know we will go Super Formula, and after this, we will work towards the next category step, which would be Formula 2, and we will see how everything goes," he said.
"I cannot tell you now which will be my ultimate goal. I have told you it's the highest level. Formula 1 is the highest level, but obviously there are so many cool series and events in circuit racing."
'Put him in an F1 car - he'll be fast!'
The Race’s Val Khorounzhiy covered Rovanpera’s (impressive) Porsche Carrera Cup race at Zandvoort back in 2024, and afterwards sat down with both Rovanpera and his sportscar veteran and Formula 3000 race-winner team manager and driver coach Marc Goossens.
You can read the full story of Rovanpera’s race weekend here, but this passage from Val’s chat with Rovanpera and Goossens now seems particularly relevant:
What if he'd pivoted right now? Fully switched tracks? Could a driver born and bred for rallying change their spots and reach the top in the world of asphalt, kerbs and 'racing incidents'?
Both Rovanpera and Goossens are invited to entertain it as a pure hypothetical, and both are happy to oblige.
"You always have to believe in yourself, so I would have to say probably yes," Rovanpera says.
"If I would now start to work - I'm only 23. For sure I wouldn't be doing any wonders. I think I have used my childhood, like, senses and everything, what develops [in childhood], I have used them in rally.
"But probably I could still be quite quick on circuits, I am quite confident of it."
Goossens, though, is even more bullish, his words backed up by the weight of a near four-decade career that had at one point taken him - as an International Formula 3000 frontrunner - to the very brink of F1.
As long as Rovanpera found himself in the right environment, Goossens says, with specialists he can lean on and whose knowledge he can trust, he'd be A-OK in anything.
"I guarantee you, you put him in any given car - you put him in a Formula 1 car now, he'll be fast in it.
"That takes a different approach, it's a completely different package, but you have him do that, he'll be fast.
"Put him in a kart, he'll be fast. I think you cannot name any of all the extremes...put the guy in a NASCAR, he'll be fast!"
The precedents
Rallying greats trying single-seaters out is nothing new - Colin McRae was rapid in an F1 Jordan, Tommi Makinen crashed an F1 Williams, Carlos Sainz Sr was in a 2022 F1 Ferrari at Fiorano last Christmas as part of his son Carlos Jr’s farewell present from the team, and Sebastien Ogier had a run in a 2011 Red Bull in 2017.
But the closest anyone’s come to a Rovanpera-style move is Ogier’s predecessor as WRC king Sebastien Loeb.
Already an occasional sportscar racer in his spare time - but who took it seriously enough that he finished second overall at Le Mans in 2006 with Pescarolo - Loeb came genuinely close to making an F1 race debut at the age of 35 when still racking up WRC titles with Citroen.
During 2009 he embarked on a serious programme of both public and private tests with Toro Rosso plus GP2 car running and an F1-level fitness programme. What began as a publicity run via his WRC sponsor Red Bull escalated to the point of a race seat for that year’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix being on the table had he been granted a superlicence.
It didn’t happen, but Loeb did eventually switch to full-time circuit racing in the World Touring Car Championship and won races.
