With 4
World Rally Championship titles, 23
WRC victories and a career in WRC events spanning 4 decades, very few can contest that Juha Kankkunen is the most successful rally driver ever.
Kankkunen, born in Laukaa, Finland in 1959 rose to the elite of the sport quickly. His first WRC event was the Finnish rally in 1979, 1983 saw him competing in a works Toyota in several rallies and 1985 brought him his first WRC victory: the Safari rally on his first attempt. Kankkunen was the first in a long series of rally stars whose career has been significantly advanced by the time, resources and contacts of Timo Jouhki.
An impressive career of four WRC titles (1985 with Peugeot, 1986 and 1991 with Lancia and 1993 with Toyota) followed. Kankkunen proved capable of moving from group B supercars to the new A group with ease, bringing with him the years of experience in car development and tuning.
Kankkunen took his last two victories (to date) with Subaru in 1999 and has since semi-retired. He has been regularly seen competing for various marques, providing a ton of expertise and reliability for troubled teams such as Hyundai in the 2001 Neste Rally Finland.
Juha is a very jovial personality, down-to-earth and easy to get along with. His love for the sport is obvious and has since helped promising drivers such as Tommi Mäkinen, Harri Rovanperä and Toni Gardemeister.