Rovanpera narrowly missed out on FIA Motorsport Games debut

Finland was one of 72 National Sporting Authorities that signed up for the event, which took place for only the second time at Circuit Paul Ricard near Marseille last weekend.

In all, 16 disciplines made up the ‘Olympics of motorsport’ competition, including drifting – a sport Rovanpera likes to get involved with away from his World Rally Championship commitments as a Toyota Gazoo Racing driver.

The 22-year-old competed at the opening round of the 2022 Drift Masters European Championship at Mondello Park in Ireland at the beginning of May as a wildcard aboard his Supra Gazoo Racing drift car. A second scheduled appearance at Sweden’s Drivecenter Arena in early July had to be canned, however, due to its close proximity with Rally Estonia which he went on to win.

Speaking at the FIA Motorsport Games, Rovanpera said he was keeping an open mind about the next instalment of the bi-annual showpiece, which is scheduled to take place in Spain in two years’ time.

He said he decided to stop by as he now lives in Monaco – a two-and-a-half hour commute to the venue by car. “I think the concept is really nice, to have so many motorsports and different races in the same place, I think that is cool,” he said.

“You can see GT cars on the track, or drifting, rallying, karting or whatever, so yeah, I think the concept is cool and to have different nations come together, it brings lots of new people to the sport.”

Asked if he would be keen on the idea of taking part in 2024, he said: “I think so. It is always difficult with our [WRC] calendar, but I think if I would be free, I could compete in some of the sports.”

He added: “It would be quite easy for me to choose [a discipline] – it would be drifting, of course. I can’t do rallying as a job all the time, it is nice to do something else.

“It was actually really close this year that I would have been here drifting, but I wasn’t sure of my calendar and I couldn’t confirm [my attendance] for the weekend, but yeah it was close that I could come here to drift.

“It was cool to see that when we went to the track there was a lot of fans, a lot of people watching drifting, so I think that is really good because it is a new sport and it seems to have attracted a lot of attention, so that’s cool.”