Lauri Joona has a varied rally season ahead

Lauri Joona has a very busy year ahead of him. The race calendar includes rallies at both Finnish Championship and World Championship levels, as well as selected asphalt races in Italy.

The Finnish Rally Championship series will start next weekend in Mikkeli. The list of participants for the season's opening race also includes Lauri Joona, who has competed in the WRC2 class of the Finnish Rally Championship in recent years. However, this is not a gap year, perhaps even the opposite.

- The goal for this year was to have as diverse a race calendar as possible. The aim is to get more race kilometers than before, and these are accumulated well from Finnish Championship rallies. The plans are to drive in the Finnish Championship series and selected World Championship rallies. In addition, there will be asphalt races in Italy, says Joona about his plans for the upcoming season.

Lauri Joona's co-driver this season is Antti Linnaketo, who has previously read pacenotes for among others, Jari Huttunen and Niclas Grönholm. The duo participated in the SanRemo Rally last October and the collaboration worked so well that it was decided to continue this season. The equipment is the familiar Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 and the teams TGS, skippered by Toni Gardemeister and the Italian MS Munaretto, are also familiar from previous years.

Joona and Linnaketo are heading to the Finnish Championship season opener with two days of testing.

- We drove a couple of days of testing towards the end of last week and they went really well. We got good kilometers and I think we adjusted the settings in the right direction. Of course, the weather on race day will affect what kind of settings will ultimately work in the race.

Lauri Joona has two Finnish Championship gold medals in the SM3 class in his trophy cabinet from previous years. In his previous Finnish Championship season, the driver from Sastamala finished third in the SM1 class. Now the drivers in the premier class are, among others, last year's champion Esapekka Lappi, as well as Anssi Rytkönen and Niclas Grönholm.

- The goals for the season are high, as always. Yes, we are going to hunt for the Finnish championship. It is also important to give such performances in the World Championship that we can drive there more in the future. In addition, the goal is to gain more experience on asphalt, which is a more foreign surface for us, Joona lists the goals for the season.

Seven special stages will be driven in the Finnish Rally Championship Mikkeli on Saturday, with a total length of 93.54 km.

- I have good memories of Mikkeli. I know it is a great winter rally and a great route, with quite fast conditions. It will definitely be a tough race, but we are starting the new rally season with a really good feeling!

The opening round of the Finnish Rally Championship series, the Finnish Rally Championship Mikkeli Rally, will have seven special stages on Saturday, January 17. The race will start from Mikkeli Market Square at 10 am and the race will end at the same place after 5 pm. The list of registered participants, schedule and results can be found at rallism.fi.