Laukkanen started the 1994 Rally Finland for the first time in a run of the World Rally Championship . In a Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 ( Group N ) he retired there after an engine failure. In the 1995 season he switched to a Group A vehicle and achieved a position in a world championship race for the first time in the RAC Rally with twelfth place overall. In the next four years he started a total of ten world championship races without getting into the points. In 2000 he took part in three rallies. At the Rally Australiahe finished fifth overall for the first and only time a place in the points. He retired from the other two rallies of the same year. By the end of his career in 2006, he started at four other world championship races, in which, however, he could not increase his successes.