The 29-year-old contested a six-event programme in the WRC2 category last year. In addition, he competed in the Arctic Lapland Rally in Rovaniemi, the Croatia round of the European Rally Championship and the traditional Rallye Sanremo.
This season, Joona’s calendar will include both Finnish Rally Championship and World Rally Championship events, as well as asphalt rallies in Italy. He will kick off his season on Saturday at the Mikkeli Rally.
Somewhat surprisingly, Joona is planning to contest a full season in the Finnish championship. The last time he competed extensively in the national series was in 2023.
“For this year, the goal was to put together as versatile a competition programme as possible. The idea is to get more competitive kilometres than before, and the Finnish championship offers plenty of those,” Joona explained.
“The plan is to contest the Finnish championship alongside selected WRC events. On top of that, we’ll also be doing asphalt rallies in Italy,” he added.
This season, Joona’s co-driver will be Antti Linnaketo. The pair already tested their cooperation last autumn at Rallye Sanremo. Ahead of the Finnish championship opener, Joona and Linnaketo completed a two-day test.
“We ran a couple of days of testing towards the end of last week, and everything went really well. We got good mileage and, in my view, adjusted the setup in the right direction. Of course, the conditions on rally day will ultimately determine which setup works best,” Joona reflected.
In the Finnish Rally Championship, Joona will be able to measure himself against, among others, Esapekka Lappi. Lappi will combine a Finnish championship campaign with selected WRC events this season as a driver for Hyundai’s factory team, and he is defending last year’s national title.
Joona and Lappi will compete with identical machinery in the Finnish series, as both will drive a Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 on the special stages.
“The goals for the season are high, as always. We’re definitely going after the Finnish championship,” Joona stated.
“It’s also important to deliver performances in the WRC that could allow us to contest more events there in the future. On top of that, the aim is to gain more experience on asphalt, which is the surface I’m least familiar with,” he added.
In the Finnish Rally Championship, Joona will compete in a Skoda run by the TGS Motorsport, led by Toni Gardemeister. The season-opening Mikkeli Rally will take place on Saturday.
