It was already known that Latvala would take primary responsibility for the opening rounds of the WRC season at Rally Monte-Carlo and Rally Sweden. However, after these events, much of the responsibility will shift to deputy team principal Juha Kankkunen, as Latvala will be busy with events in the FIA European Historic Rally Championship.
Latvala revealed at the conclusion of Rally Monte-Carlo last weekend that, after Rally Sweden, his presence at WRC events will be limited. His goal is to attend roughly half of the season’s rallies.
This means that, following Sweden, Kankkunen will take on more of the team principal duties.
“I’ll be at some of the rallies, but Juha will probably attend nearly all the events after Sweden. In some rallies, we’ll both be there together,” Latvala told RallyJournal.com
“My goal is to try to be at around five rallies after Sweden.”
Latvala has been mentoring Kankkunen for team principal duties since the end of last season. The pair also worked together during Rally Monte-Carlo. The collaboration with the four-time world champion from Finland has been excellent.
“Things have gone really well with Juha. We’ve had a great time together. We just had a meal and coffee and even reminisced about some old times,” Latvala said with a smile.
“Even this morning, Juha mentioned that he would go with four studded tyres for those conditions, saying slicks wouldn’t hold up,” Latvala added, referring to Kankkunen’s assessment of Sunday’s tricky tyre choices during Rally Monte-Carlo.
Toyota’s WRC team has effectively had multiple team bosses for several seasons. Latvala has primarily acted as the public face of the team, handling media responsibilities while also engaging with drivers and team members. Meanwhile, key responsibilities have been shared by technical director Tom Fowler, sporting director Kaj Lindström, and project leader Yuichiro Haruna, who also serves as the CEO of the Finland-based team.
Toyota’s leadership structure in the WRC team has been ingenious. With Latvala handling the time-consuming media responsibilities during rallies, Fowler and Lindström have been able to focus on managing other team operations calmly during the events.
