{"id":54185,"date":"2017-09-12T15:10:14","date_gmt":"2017-09-12T14:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/issue_content\/data-trace-tommi-makinen\/"},"modified":"2019-07-19T14:55:42","modified_gmt":"2019-07-19T13:55:42","slug":"data-trace-tommi-m-kinen","status":"publish","type":"issue_content","link":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/archive\/article\/april-2017\/134\/data-trace-tommi-m-kinen\/","title":{"rendered":"Data trace: Tommi M\u00e4kinen"},"content":{"rendered":"

The head of Toyota\u2019s recently revived WRC programme has a very impressive rally pedigree<\/strong><\/p>\n

The son of triple 1000 Lakes and RAC Rally winner Timo, Tommi M\u00e4kinen\u2019s competition career began on tractors and he was twice crowned Finnish ploughing champion during the 1980s. He switched to rallying in 1985 and won the national Group N title three years later. M\u00e4kinen graduated full-time to the WRC in the middle of 1990 with a Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 and Seppo Harjanne as his co-driver. He finished third in the Group N standings despite his late start.<\/p>\n

Occasional works drives with Mazda and Nissan were followed by the offer of a factory Ford Escort RS Cosworth for the 1994 1000 Lakes. \u201cI\u2019m still not sure what happened,\u201d he said after beating the recognised stars to establish his reputation on the world stage.<\/p>\n

M\u00e4kinen joined Mitsubishi in 1995, although mechanical failures, accidents and team orders prevented victory during that frustrating first season. However, that was the prelude to unprecedented domination of 1996-99 \u2013 a period that included 18 victories as M\u00e4kinen became the first driver to win the WRC title for four years in a row. It is a feat that has since been equalled or bettered only by S\u00e9bastiens Loeb and Ogier.<\/p>\n

M\u00e4kinen spent two more seasons with Mitsubishi, finishing fifth and third in the title race, before moving to Subaru. A two-year stint included his fourth successive Monte Carlo Rally win before he decided to retire from the sport at the end of 2003, with 24 WRC victories to his name.<\/p>\n

World Rally champion<\/strong><\/p>\n

1996, 1997, 1998, 1999<\/p>\n

WRC starts<\/strong><\/p>\n

139<\/p>\n

WRC wins<\/strong><\/p>\n

Finland<\/b>    1994, 1996, 1997, 1998
\nMonte Carlo<\/b>    1999, 2000, 2001, 2002
\nArgentina<\/b>    1996, 1997, 1998
\nSweden<\/b>    1996, 1998, 1999
\nAustralia<\/b>    1996, 1998
\nKenya<\/b>    1996, 2001
\nPortugal<\/b>    1997, 2001
\nSanremo<\/b>    1998, 1999
\nCatalunya<\/b>    1997
\nNew Zealand<\/b>    1999<\/p>\n

Narrowest winning margin<\/strong><\/p>\n

7 seconds, 1997 Catalunya & 1000 Lakes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":207,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[],"tags":[167],"issue_decade":[121600],"issue_year":[121674],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content\/54185"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/issue_content"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/207"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54185"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content\/54185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":223636,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_content\/54185\/revisions\/223636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54185"},{"taxonomy":"issue_decade","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_decade?post=54185"},{"taxonomy":"issue_year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.motorsportmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/issue_year?post=54185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}