Gap (AFP)

At just 19 years old, Kalle Rovanperä is playing in the big leagues this year and competing in the Monte-Carlo rally in the same WRC car as Sébastien Ogier, 17 years older, and sees himself compared to Max Verstappen, the young prodigy of F1.

The Finn, who won the title of WRC-2 Pro world champion at Skoda last year, took the plunge this year in the supreme category within the Toyota team led by his compatriot Tommi Mäkinen, four times winner of the "Monte" and as many times WRC world champion twenty years ago.

He was quick to prove that he was ripe by winning a few days ago the Artic Rally, disputed on his Finnish lands, at the wheel of the Toyota Yaris WRC. But this event does not count for the world championship, on the contrary of the Monte-Carlo which inaugurates it.

He chose himself as number 69. "That way, when I put the car on the roof, it stays the same", jokes Kalle the mischievous eye, while hastening to add: "I have not planning to roll over. "

"But I always try to push the limits," he said in an interview with AFP. "Last year, we made a lot of mistakes while trying to get there," he conceded, recalling that he still has to discover those of a car in the WRC 1 category.

"I have plenty of time ahead of me" before thinking of winning a championship event, said the native of Jyväskylä, epicenter of the rally in Finland which is contested in August. "But we have seen drivers win in their first year" in the WRC and "if I win one, it will be good!".

His face, where blue eyes shine with a tuft of blond hair, still shows signs of acne betraying his young age. Like many of his compatriots, he rarely smiles and his Finnish accent gives him a jerky diction.

By its precocity, it is often compared to the Dutchman Max Verstappen who had started in Formula 1 in 2015 at 17 years and 166 days.

"I've heard it before and I find it quite flattering. Max has done a fantastic job in F1 and he's winning races. I really hope I can do the same," said Kalle.

He admits that he does not know Max personally but would one day like to exchange his car with him. His compatriots Kimi Räikkonen, 2007 F1 world champion, and Valtteri Bottas, go from the seat of an F1 car to that of a rally car. Bottas, Lewis Hamilton's teammate at Mercedes, finished 9th in the Artic Rally.

- Like father, like son -

"Maybe I will try a car one day," says Kalle, but his priority today is in rallying.

He also shares with Max Verstappen, whose father Jos had raced in F1 in the years 1990/2000, a lineage in motor racing.

Harri Rovanperä, winner of the Swedish rally in 2001, took his little son to drive, sitting on his lap. Too young to race in Finland, Kalle then "emigrated" to Latvia, a country where you don't need to have a driver's license to participate in car races.

At the age of eight, he was already broadcasting on YouTube a video where at the wheel of a small Toyota he went off in long slides on the snow ... before planting himself in an embankment of powder.

Tommi Mäkinen hopes to hold on to the new Finnish rally star after two decades of French domination by Sébastien Loeb and Sébastien Ogier. "I would like to see him as quickly as possible on a podium," said the manager of the Toyota team.

"He is part of a new generation of drivers," he said, recognizing that the qualities required of a WRC champion today have changed a lot since his time. "But he seems to be ready despite his young age and knows how to analyze with a lot of experience" the situations.

Tommi Mäkinen dodges the question on the importance of the role played by Harri Rovanperä in the precocity of her son: "I don't know if it comes from his father or his mother, it's a mixture anyway!", he quips.

© 2020 AFP