The factors behind Rovanpera and Tanak making their WRC returns
by Tom Howard · AutosportThe pair, both world champions, will contest the 2027 WRC season with Toyota
The World Rally Championship will see two of its most popular champions return in 2027, as Kalle Rovanpera and Ott Tanak are part of Toyota’s six car line-up.
Rovanpera and Tanak are both making WRC comebacks after sitting out the 2026 campaign, albeit in vastly different circumstances.
Two-time world champion Rovanpera appeared to have called time on competing in the WRC at the end of 2025 to embark on a single-seater career, having inked a move to Super Formula.
But, the Finn was forced to abandon that plan due to health reasons after suffering from Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo and was sidelined from competitive driving.
After being declared fit to drive, however, the 26-year-old admitted he didn’t expect to be back in the WRC but is happy to have agreed to a partial campaign driving a new GR Yaris.
Although single-seater racing appears to be off the agenda for now, Rovanpera is hopeful to add some circuit racing to his 2027 season.
“It's exciting to be back, happy to be back,” Rovanpera told Autosport. “We all know it was not the plan to be in this situation at this moment.
“Life happens and sometimes there are things you cannot control so I'm just really happy that we could make a good plan with Toyota for the upcoming years and still stay with the Toyota team and also come back to driving a rally car after a year of not driving anything.
“I'm just happy to be in any competition and get back to driving. I think it was just the plan we could make with Toyota. I wanted to stay with them, obviously it was really important.
“We had a good plan with some rallying. Although nothing is confirmed, hopefully something else on the side, maybe some circuit racing if we can make something like this happen. I'm just happy with the plan and getting back to driving is the main thing.
“Considering all the things that happened and my age and everything, obviously it’s [single-seaters] going to be a much smaller thing. I don't think we are going to focus on it in the next years anymore. But we'll see.”
Reflecting on the decision to curtail his single-seater plans last year, Rovanpera believes it was the right call. “Of course it was quite a big decision to make, winter time to cancel the Super Formula season,” he said, “but then looking back into it, it was the right call.
“Health is the most important thing you need to have, and then seeing what led to it, and then how well the recovery and everything has been, it was the right call. Happy with the call, and obviously sad that the plan didn't work out. It means something has failed on the way. You never know what happens but life goes on.”
When pressed on his circuit racing plans for 2027, he added: “I think GT cars. Every time I drove them in the past years, I really enjoyed it and it was quite natural coming from a rally car, probably something like this.
“Nothing is planned yet, but there are some ideas at least to look into, and we will see if we can make something happen.”
Tanak hungry to make WRC return
Like Rovanpera, Tanak made the decision to leave the WRC at the end of 2025 after a frustrating season with Hyundai. At the time, the 2019 world champion refused to rule out making a comeback and in 2027 he will return to the WRC on a full-time basis driving a new GR Yaris.
The prospect of Tanak returning to the WRC was further fuelled when the Estonian took up a development driver role at Toyota. Tanak has since played a significant role in the development of both Toyota’s GR Yaris and GR Celica machinery.
According to the 39-year-old, this development driver role helped fuel a desire for a comeback with the team that guided him to the WRC title eight years ago. "It was good in a way that I had time for myself, but still I had quite a bit driving and I could enjoy driving the rally car,” Tanak told Autosport.
“I guess at some moment you start to miss a bit the competition and obviously the work. The team is professional, there is no question and the way we've been working, I think it's also something that convinced me that we should still work together and go racing.
“There is no question that the team has grown a lot [since 2019]. It was still a very young team when I joined it for the first time.
“Now in the meantime, we can see the history already behind, and many more drivers have come on board. Generally inside the team, it's very competitive.
“So definitely there are many changes from 2019. There is really no other choice [than a full attack for next year].”
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