Jari-Matti Latvala
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| Nation: |
 Finland
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| World Rally Championship (WRC) | |||||||||
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| First rally: | Rally Great Britain 2002 | ||||||||
| Co-driver: |
Miikka Anttila
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| Team: |
Toyota Gazoo Racing Volkswagen Motorsport Ford World Rally Team |
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| Vehicle: |
Toyota Yaris WRC VW Polo R WRC Ford Fiesta RS WRC Ford Focus RS WRC |
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| Points: | 1648 | ||||||||
| Status: After rally 10 of 14, 2019 season | |||||||||
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Jari-Matti Latvala (born April 3, 1985 in Töysä ) is a Finnish rally driver . Latvala drives in the World Rally Championship (WRC) for Toyota Gazoo Racing . His co-driver is fellow countryman Miikka Anttila. Jari-Matti Latvala is the son of rally driver Jari Latvala.
Latvala was runner-up in the world championship three times (2010, 2014 and 2015) and won 18 rallies, but so far he has not won the title. Thus Latvala is the most successful driver in the World Rally Championship, which never managed to become a world champion when speaking of Markku Alén but, apart, could get the 19 wins and himself never won, although the World Cup later the unofficial world champion of 1978 has been appointed was.
Career
At the age of 16, Jari-Matti Latvala drove his first rallies in regional and national championships in Finland. In 2002 he started his first run in the World Rally Championship at the Rally Great Britain . In 2003 he won the national rally championship in Estonia . He then moved to the JWRC and later to the Production Car World Rally Championship (PWRC). From 2006 he drove for Stobart-Ford and he reached the podium in the top rally class WRC for the first time with third place at the 2007 Rally Ireland . From 2008 he drove as the successor to Marcus Grönholm in the Ford works team with team-mate Mikko Hirvonen at the side.
With the first overall victory at the Rally Sweden on February 10, 2008, at the age of 22 , Latvala became the youngest ever World Rally Championship winner. Latvala finished the 2009 season in fourth place in the world championship and was runner-up in 2010 behind Sébastien Loeb .
He also competed for the Ford works team in the 2011 World Rally Championship . With the new Ford Fiesta RS WRC , he finished second in the Rally Australia . As the fastest driver of this run, he followed a stable direction from Ford and intentionally lost 28 seconds and first place to team-mate Hirvonen.
At the next rally in France , too , Latvala gave his team-mate a better place due to team orders. He deliberately took a two-minute time penalty to let Hirvonen pass and give him fourth place. A few hours after the Rally France, the third Petter Solberg was disqualified. His vehicle was four kilograms too light after the subsequent weighing. All drivers moved up one position from fourth place. Latvala was fourth, while Hirvonen moved up to third. The team order would therefore not have been absolutely necessary. At the Rally Catalonia , Latvala drove for victory again. His job was to put as much pressure as possible on main competitor Sébastien Loeb . Latvala lost the lead due to a puncture, after which he held the undisputed second place for two days. The third Ford stable control in a row forced him again to take a two-minute time penalty. So he gave his second place to Hirvonen and he was third. In Great Britain , Latvala won the first rally since the 2010 Rally Finland . He finished the 2011 season 50 points behind Sébastien Loeb in fourth place in the drivers' world championship.
After longtime teammate Mikko Hirvonen left for Citroën , Latvala became the hope for the 2012 world championship title at Ford. He retired on the first day of the Monte Carlo Rally . The reason was an accident on an icy road. Latvala won the Rally Sweden and the Rally Great Britain . He finished the year in third place in the World Championship.
On October 17, 2012 , Latvala announced that he was driving for Volkswagen Motorsport in 2013 . The following day, Ford announced its withdrawal from the WRC in the media. It is not known whether Latvala's decision was made with or without knowledge of the Ford team's new privateer status at M-Sport . In 2013 Latvala won the Rally Greece and came third in the World Championship .
The year 2014 started well with a fifth place finish at the Monte Carlo Rally and a win in Sweden . Behind team-mate Sébastien Ogier , Latvala finished second in the world championship at the end of the season.
The year 2015 began for Jari-Matti Latvala with a second place in the Monte Carlo Rally , behind team-mate and driver's world championship rival Sébastien Ogier , with a good result. This was followed by three rallies in which Latvala retired due to driving errors or technical problems. The reigning world champion Ogier's lead was now considerable. With three wins, four second places and further points, Latvala was able to defend the runner-up world title from last year, behind Ogier and in front of second team mate Andreas Mikkelsen .
The 2016 rally year was not particularly successful for Jari-Matti Latvala. The only bright spot remained his overall victory in the Rally Mexico and his second places in Italy and Finland . He finished his season in 6th place in the world championship and as 3rd Volkswagen driver behind Ogier and Mikkelsen.
When Volkswagen Motorsport announced its withdrawal from the World Rally Championship at the end of the 2016 season , Latvala had to look for a new cockpit. He struck gold with the Toyota Gazoo Racing team led by Tommi Mäkinen , Latvala was the main driver alongside Juho Hänninen . The partnership with Toyota began right away in the Monte Carlo Rally with a second place and in the Sweden Rally with an overall victory. In the meantime he led the drivers' world championship, which he finished fourth overall and the best Toyota driver.
In 2018 , Latvala won the Rally Australia and was again fourth in the World Championship, but this time lost out to his new team-mate Ott Tänak in the overall standings .
The 2019 season was much worse for the Finn. For the first time since 2007 he failed to win a rally and, behind the new world champion Tänak and Kris Meeke, he was the worst-placed Toyota driver with seventh place in the drivers' championship.
For 2020 Latvala did not get a regular place in a factory team. He finances a few world championship races himself and drives a Toyota Yaris WRC.
statistics
WRC victories
| No. | season | rally | Co-driver | vehicle |
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| 1 | 2008 |
 Rally Sweden
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Miikka Anttila | Ford Focus RS WRC |
| 2 | 2009 |
 Rally Italy
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| 3 | 2010 |
 Rally New Zealand
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| 4th |
Rally Finland
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| 5 | 2011 |
 Rally Great Britain
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Ford Fiesta RS WRC | |
| 6th | 2012 |
Rally Sweden
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| 7th |
Rally Great Britain
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| 8th | 2013 |
 Rally Greece
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Volkswagen Polo R WRC | |
| 9 | 2014 |
Rally Sweden
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| 10 |
 Rally Argentina
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| 11 |
Rally Finland
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| 12 |
 Rally France
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| 13 | 2015 |
 Rally Portugal
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| 14th |
Rally Finland
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| 15th |
Rally Corsica
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| 16 | 2016 |
 Rally Mexico
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| 17th | 2017 |
Rally Sweden
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Toyota Yaris WRC | |
| 18th | 2018 |
 Rally Australia
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Individual results WRC
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| Legend | ||
|---|---|---|
| colour | abbreviation | meaning |
| gold | - | victory |
| silver | - | 2nd place |
| bronze | - | 3rd place |
| green | - | Placement in the points |
| blue | - | Classified outside the point ranks |
| violet | DNF | Race not finished (did not finish) |
| NC | not classified | |
| red | DNQ | did not qualify |
| DNPQ | failed in pre-qualification (did not pre-qualify) | |
| black | DSQ | disqualified |
| White | DNS | not at the start (did not start) |
| WD | withdrawn | |
| Light Blue | PO | only participated in the training (practiced only) |
| TD | Friday test driver | |
| without | DNP | did not participate in the training (did not practice) |
| INJ | injured or sick | |
| EX | excluded | |
| DNA | did not arrive | |
| C. | Race canceled | |
| no participation in the World Cup | ||
| other | P / bold | Pole position |
| SR / italic | Fastest race lap | |
| * | not at the finish, but counted due to the distance covered |
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| () | Streak results | |
| underlined | Leader in the overall standings | |
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hirvonen: "We worked as a team" (Motorsport-Total.com on September 11, 2011)
- ↑ WRC wrap: Home triumph for Ogier (wrc.com on October 2, 2011)
- ↑ Solberg's car too light ( memento of the original from October 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Rallye-Magazin.de on October 2, 2011)
- ↑ Hirvonen: "Must win now" ( Memento of the original from October 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Rallye-Magazin.de on October 24, 2011)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Latvala, Jari-Matti |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Finnish rally driver |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 3, 1985 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Töysä |