The name of Tommi Mäkinen is very much inscribed within Kiwi rally history. Nine times he competed in the Rally NZ round of the World Rally Championship, winning once (1999), finishing on the podium twice (1998 and 2003) and retiring four times (1991, ’95, ’97, 2000).
We may not have seen the best of the four-time WRC title winning driver in New Zealand, but we saw plenty of him and a successful line of Mitsubishi Evos’ competing on our roads.
The recent news has been about the impending departure of Mäkinen from the Toyota WRC team he helped build since 2015, after the parent brand bought its World Rally Championship operations from Mäkinen’s TMR preparation firm.
But what does that mean for Toyota and for Mäkinen?
DirtFish’s voice of rally Colin Clark and Senior Staff Writer David Evans discuss the ramifications in their episode of SPIN, The Rally Pod.
Well worth a listen.
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