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Ari Vatanen’s greatest hits
With Peugeot set to return to the Dakar Rally, we look at the career of one of the marque’s heroes.
A lion in the desert
© Peugeot Sport
The 2014 Dakar Rally sees 2010 Dakar winner and two-time WRC world champion Carlos Sainz teaming up with multiple winner in the Dakar bike category Cyril Despres behind the wheel of the all-new Peugeot 2008 DKR.
But 30 years ago, Peugeot's main man was the legendary Ari Vatanen. We track his career:
WRC
Born on April 27, 1952 in Tuupovaara, Finland, Ari Vatanen took part in his first rally at the age of 18. Eleven years later, in 1981, he was crowned world champion.
Despite driving Ford Escorts, Opel Asconas and even Subaru Imprezas during a World Rally Championship career that spanned four decades, Vatanen is most famously associated with one car, the legendary Peugeot 205 T16 Group B machine which, in its second evolution guise, was known to put out in excess of 500 horsepower.
Vatanen’s strike rate with the car is a testament to the fact that, although potent, the Peugeot was a bit of a handful. Out of the 13 rallies that the Finn competed in with the 205 T16 in 1984 and 1985, he either retired (seven times), won (five times) or finished second (once).
It was his final retirement in the car, though, at the 1985 Rally Argentina, that would prove a turning point for Vatanen, with the force of the impact following a sixth-gear crash wrenching Vatanen’s seat off its mounting and shattering his ankles and knees. His career in the top flight of the WRC was over – but there was still more to come from the Flying Finn.
Vatanen in full attack mode at 1985 Rally Sweden
© DPPI
Victory at the Dakar Rally
With Group B banned after the death of Henri Toivonen in 1986, Peugeot had to look elsewhere if they wanted their 205 T16 brute to compete. The answer was the Paris-Dakar Rally, and who better to drive the car than the returning Ari Vatanen?
Vatanen had suffered 18 months of rehabilitation to get (literally) back on his feet. But after battling through the 1987 Paris-Dakar’s gruelling 8,315km, it was clear that the Finn was still a force to be reckoned with, taking victory over more experienced competitors at his first time of trying.
Vatanen may well have repeated the act the following year had his new car, the Peugeot 405 T16, not been stolen from the service area in Bamako. However, wins would follow again in 1989 and 1990 in the 405 T16, with Vatanen completing a hat-trick in 1991 after switching to Peugeot sister brand Citroën’s ZX. Not a bad comeback...
Pikes Peak
While Vatanen was busy stamping his authority on the Dakar Rally, he and Peugeot also found time to take on one of the world’s most daunting motorsport events, the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, in 1988.
Armed again with the Peugeot 405 T16, Vatanen reached the top of the hill in 10.47.220, a new record at the time on the then all-gravel surface. Jean-Louis Mourey’s film about Vatanen’s 1988 effort, Climb Dance, remains one of the best pieces of motorsport film-making ever, a chance to see a real offroad genius in full attack mode on one of the scariest roads you’re ever likely to clap eyes on.
