F1 drivers share thoughts on Kalle Rovanpera’s upcoming move from being a WRC driver to single-seaters in Super Formula in 2026.
Having won two WRC titles at a young age, Rovanpera is preparing himself for a bold move into single-seater competition from 2026 onward. The Toyota-backed driver is to dive into the world of Super Formula championship in Japan, which will be his first step.
The 25-year-old went on a semi-WRC run in 2024 with an idea to compete in circuit competition. He did several races in Porsche Carrera Cup, with race wins in the Benelux series. Considering he is still young in age and career, the Finnish driver is eyeing a move from rally to potentially F1 in time to come.
The first step is Super Formula, with an idea to compete in F2 later on – the feeder to F1. Rovanpera will potentially join Colton Herta in taking a different route to the pinnacle, leaving their big shot championships to compete against feeder drivers to collect superlicense points and experience.
Here’s few F1 drivers opining on his move –
Fernando Alonso: “Yeah, no idea, curious to see how he does. He’s incredibly talented driver. Definitely he will face some challenges, depends on the series that he will go into but already from next year II think it will be a pretty important challenge and yeah, I’ll follow with curiosity. I don’t know. You are right, it is more difficult to see people doing from that way, from rally to single-seater than the other way around. Yeah, it will be a good test. Even though he will not be sitting in the Super Formula for the very first time, finding the clutch and go to race, I think he will do lots of simulator days and I guess, preparation with junior formulas or something before you go to first hit on the Super Formula, so I guess he will have a progression. I needed very specific [when I moved around] and all were different. It takes time, work and dedication for sure.
“The most difficult one is to rally. But also endurance was different and oval racing, extremely different as well but yeah, rally was always playing with the two feet, brake and throttle for the whole time in a stage. And then the limits of the car and the limits of what you can do is shockingly different. Yeah, back then for me, I was okay because after the first couple of tests, I was able to jump with Giniel de Villiers as a our co-driver, and then discover a new world of limits and they were showing me how to drive that car and what the limit was, because I was well under that limit, that was driving along.
“Obviously in single-seaters you don’t have that coach approach, you cannot jump with some other drivers and then see what the Super Formula can do and things like that, so that’s a more little bit tricky but yeah on the other side, I think single-seaters and these kind of teams, they have a lot of data and a lot of things you can study. On rally or Dakar, there is no data available, so the only data or learning that you take is when you jump someone else.”
Esteban Ocon: “Yeah, I think, first of all, it’s awesome. It’s going to be a story that I really follow closely, and I’ve been following him already when he was doing some Porsche Cup races and seeing how he goes into that. Obviously, if I was him, I was winning already two titles in WRC and being so young, and having Toyota to support, definitely you want to try something else, so, yeah, I definitely think that’s a fantastic thing, but him, Colton Herta, it’s going to be quite interesting to see how they develop. I think Kalle is going to have much more of a tough task to learn because it’s a completely different sport, but, yeah, I mean, he’s done drift championships, he’s done a lot of car racing as well.
“I think for, like, training and track days, he’s going to have what he needs to relearn again how things are going and to get ready to perform straight away, but even with all the driving in the world, you need to adapt to these things, and it’s going to be interesting to really follow how it goes, especially that he’s starting in one of the toughest championships, which is the Super Formula Championship. I’m not saying F2 is easier, but you get there and all these guys have been racing for years, they are professionals, into the Japanese tracks as well and into a different philosophy of, because I don’t think, normally all the engineers speak English, etc., so it’s going to be quite interesting to follow that and see how it goes. I think going to, for us circuit driver going to rally, I think the speed we have is more the consistency. The memory aspect of things is a big, big difference. I did a day of rally, I think, it was two years ago or last year.
“I didn’t do the recce and stuff, but it was quite difficult even doing the same stage again to memorise everything how they do, because for them memorising is more important than setting the car up or having everything to feel good. So, that’s the biggest difference. Once they get to circuit racing, it’s more the detail, more the feeling, more optimising the car and less the memory, so it’s completely different as a compromise. So, I mean, yeah, we’ve seen circuit drivers going to rally being fast but crashing a lot. On the other hand, it’s also, Seb Ogier has done well also in the LMP2, but it’s going to be an interesting story, I’m going to think.”
Max Verstappen: “To go straight into a Super Formula car is a big jump. But again, if you are fully committed, you believe in yourself and you work hard for it, then who knows? I’m very interested to see how it’s going to turn out because it’s great, it’s not really been done before like that. At the end of the day, he won two championships already. So his dream is probably achieved anyway. And now this is a different challenge, and maybe he already wanted that when he was younger as well.”
