World News – FI – Finnish rally legend ‘Flying Finn’ Mikkola dies

March 1, 2021

HELSINKI – Hannu Mikkola, world rally champion from 1983 and one of the greatest rally players in Finland, who was nicknamed “Flying Finn” and “Flying Finn” internationally known in a more than 30-year driving career, has died He was 78 years old

Mikkola’s son Vesa Mikkola, a former rally driver, tweeted on Saturday: “We lost my father Hannu to cancer this weekend. Most knew him as the great rally man who ushered in the golden years of the sport. He was a father to me “

We lost my father Hannu to cancer this weekend. Most knew him as a great rally man who ushered in the golden years of the sport. He was a father to me – and an incredible one at that. Always supportive, loving and sincere, also a loving one Grandfather to my two boys rest in peace dad ❤️ picTwittercom / xL3L21E5Qz

Mikkola began his driving career with Volvo vehicles in the early 1960s, but made a name for himself in the 1970s as a driver of a number of Ford Escorts at world rally championships, including a 1972 win at the East African Safari Rally in Kenya and a British rally championship 1978

On his home turf he won, among other things, the first seven times000 lakes rally in Finland

He later worked with the Mazda team before retiring from professional motorsport in the early 1990s

Mikkola started 123 WRC – with a total of 18 wins – and continued as a guest driver at various events until 2017, the WRC announced in a statement after his death

The news of Mikkola’s death resulted in several tributes from his former colleagues and fans around the world and in Finland, a motorsport powerhouse that has spawned several Formula 1 and rally champions

The organizers of the WRC Arctic Rally, which took place over the weekend in Rovaniemi in the Finnish region of Lapland, observed a minute’s silence on the podium in honor of Mikkola

In addition, the Finnish Air Force’s F-18 Hornet fighter jets held a memorial flyover in honor of one of the most famous rally drivers in the Nordic country

FIA President Jean Todt, a former rally driver, attended the event and wrote “a legendary driver and a lifelong friend” “

in a tweet called Mikkola