1000 Lakes

In 1981 Ari Vatanen had a full programme of WRC events driving a works-blessed Ford Escort RS 1800, prepared and run by the private team of David Sutton. Ari came to his home event fresh from winning in Brasil, but here the speed of Hannu Mikkola's revolutionary four-wheel-drive Audi Quattro initially seemed to keep him from another top score. Mikkola, however, was delayed by an engine problem and from then on it became a classic duel between Vatanen and Markku Alen in his Fiat.

"We were fighting for the drivers' World Championship, but Markku Alen was not the main opposition in that battle. Instead, I always seemed to be fighting with him in the 1000 Lakes Rally and this year was no exception. Markku was always fast out of the blocks and during the first night he usually stretched out an advantage that was too big to catch up later on.

This time we were fast from the start, too. After a scary moment in Ehikki David (Richards) said we must slow down, there are more important goals for us now than just winning this rally. I persuaded him that we should keep attacking for just one more stage (Ouninpohja) and then see.

As it happened, Markku soon rolled, although he typically lost very little time. Still, that gave us a big enough advantage to then control the gap to the end.

What felt very good about this victory was the fact that I didn't give in to the pressure to accumulate safe World Championship points - I didn't settle for a secure second, but kept pushing to the end and managed to hold the performance together all the way. And of course it was fantastic to win my home WRC event, especially after fighting it out with Markku, who so many times before had got the better of me on this very rally. It left me with a feeling of fulfillment."