WRC champion Rovanpera eyeing GT outing in 2024

Newly crowned two-time world rally champion Kalle Rovanpera is eyeing an outing in a GT car next year following his announcement to contest a part-time WRC campaign in 2024.

The 23-year-old is set to have more free time on his hands next year after electing to conduct a partial WRC campaign to recharge his batteries, before returning to full-time competition in 2025.

Rovanpera is an admirer of all motorsport and said in his announcement last month that he intends to compete in events outside of rally next year. The Finn is a fan of drifting and was seen contesting drift events in Europe and Japan this year.

However, speaking at a press conference at the FIA’s Prize Gala in Baku, Rovanpera says he intends to test a GT car next year.

“Actually, now we are planning at least to hopefully get some testing in GT cars and if everything goes well why not [do] a race also,” said Rovanpera when asked about his plans outside of rallying next year by Motorsport.com.

Rovanpera drove a McLaren Senna hypercar on a circuit earlier this year as part of a promotional video with former F1 stars Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard.

The Toyota driver isn’t the only rally driver to dabble in circuit racing recently. Rovanpera’s eight-time world champion team-mate Sebastien Ogier contested a partial campaign racing a LMP2 prototype in the World Endurance Championship last season.

The late 1995 WRC champion Colin McRae is another driver to have raced GT cars, famously tackling the 2004 Le Mans 24 Hours, alongside Darren Turner and Rickard Rydell in a Prodrive-run Ferrari 550-GTS Maranello.

Photo by: Tomasz Kaliński

Kalle Rovanperä, Jonne Halttunen, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota GR Yaris Rally1

Rovanpera’s co-driver Jonne Halttunen also shed some more light on his plans for next year revealing that he is keen to move into a media commentating role.

“I’m actually quite happy to have a partial season because it is quite consuming to do the full season in WRC,” said Halttunen.

“For us it is not only the race, for me every event is two weeks [long] so I think I will focus on myself and maybe do some commentating.”