Why Finland won't have F1 drivers for the first time since the 1980s

Although Finland has only 5.6 million inhabitants – barely 0.07% of the world population -, contributed enormously to the history of Formula 1. It is true that the Nordic country has never hosted major prizes or World Cup teams.

However, among his nine drivers who competed in F1, there was seven who finished on the podium (including Mika Salo and Jyrki Jarvilehto, better known as JJ Lehto), five race winners (including Heikki Kovalainen And Valtteri Bottas), as well as three champions: Keke Rosberg, Mika Häkkinen And Kimi Raikkonen. it doesn't count Nicholas Rosbergwho was crowned in 2016 but raced under German license from his second campaign in the F3 Euro Series, in 2004, until his surprising retirement after winning the title.

That's a surprisingly high win rate. In a quote often wrongly attributed to Raikkönen, renowned Finnish F1 journalist Heikki Kulta attributed this success to the harsh climate of the land of a thousand lakes. “Our roads and the long winters“, he told 'The Telegraph' in 2008.”You really have to be a good pilot to survive in Finland. It's always slippery and bumpy“.

Kovalainen, winner of the race with Renault, McLaren and Lotus, does not entirely agree: “We get used to harsh and slippery conditions from a young age“he explains to Motorsport.com. “Once we hit the road, I guess you have to have above average skills to survive and stay on that slippery asphalt. A lot of people talk about it a lot, but my feeling is that this is not as important a factor as it seems“.

Rather, Kovalainen believes there are a few more influential factors. The first is an enduring passion for motorsport, in a country that has enjoyed even greater success in gatherings. From Ari Vatanen until Kalle Rovanperäeight Finns have been world champions in this discipline; France follows them with three.

When Kovalainen was a child, Juha Kankkunen and Tommi Makinen dominated the WRC, while Hakkinen made waves in F1. It's no surprise that he's interested in the sport, as his post-Grand Circus track record includes a Super GT crown and two consecutive Japan Rally Championship titles.

“All these guys were in the news a lot, so you couldn't help but see them, you saw them everywhere“, explains Kovalainen. Maybe it affected a lot of people like me: I watched the news, I saw the cars, I saw the speeds they reached, and maybe it made grow the passion for motorsport.”

“Maybe the other reason is that the Finnish mentality is rather neutral,” adds the 43-year-old. “We are relatively neutral people, we don't have ups and downs in our lives, we have normal, ordinary days. In this kind of high-pressure environment, that's a good thing.. You have a lot of pressure, you are in the spotlight with a lot to deal with. If you can stay calm and natural, it helps a lot. It seems that the Finns don't need to make much effort for this: even if the situation is tense and complicated, we remain calm and cool.”

The fact is that unless one of the pilots of Mercedes is injured and Bottas replaces him, 2025 will be the first Formula 1 season without a Finnish driver since 1988the year before Lehto debuted with Onyx on the final four dates. Bottas, 35, failed to hold down a place on the grid after scoring no points aboard a Sauber struggling in 2024, while Kovalainen and Raikkönen, from the previous generation, have long since retired.

“The new Mercedes reserve driver obviously prefers to maintain a positive outlook for the 2026 transfer market.”In my mind, this still isn't my last race“, he said in Abu Dhabi, but for now it is a reality.

“I saw it coming, so it doesn’t surprise me at all,” Kovalainen says. “Certainly, in the second half of last year it was becoming more and more obvious that even Valtteri was not going to continue as a driver. When Sauber chose Hülkenberg over Valtteri, I was surprised, because I thought that if Nico got the seat, Bottas' performance would be at least as good as Hülkenberg's.“.

“I guess there are probably marketing reasons behind this, but it's a bit disappointing if it's a decision driven by that factor.because normally this type of big brands, if they want to become a leading team, choose drivers based on performance and not for marketing reasons.

“Having said that, Hülkenberg has performed pretty well, I'm not saying he's not the right guy. But Valtteri has been there for three years and then they didn't renew him, in a way. This made me feel like there was something missing in this relationship, something they don't like about Valtteri, or something they think doesn't fit with their plans.“.

The problem is that no Finnish driver has come close to entering the World Championship since Bottas' debut in 2013, with Williams. Actually, The only young man to race in the main F1 support categories (Formula 2, or previously GP2) in the last fifteen years was Niko Kari.who was a Red Bull junior between 2016 and 2017 after winning the SMP F4.

Kari placed tenth in his inaugural European F3 and GP3 campaigns, which was not enough to retain his place at the Academy. His unsuccessful and only foray into F2 came in the final two rounds of 2018, and He has not made any significant appearance since the 2020 European Le Mans Series.

But why are there so few Finns in the youth ranks these days? “That's a good question, I probably don't have the right answer,” says Kovalainen, who is open to helping young national drivers in single-seaters or rallying, having himself sought advice from Keke Rosberg as a promising young man. “This is a question we have also discussed here in the Formula 1 studios, when I work in television. We don't have a clear consensus“.

“The difference today with, for example, my time, when I was one of the first to join the Renault junior program, which was one of the first brands to create it, is that at that time, the essential that I had was financial support. They paid for all my races in the lower categories. But nowadays, from what I understand, even if you are chosen in a FerrariMercedes or any other team, most drivers must contribute to their own budgetand this is a major obstacle, because the budgets are very high and Finland is not such a big market, especially now that the economy is in crisis.”

“In general, these are tough times for a lot of businesses, for a lot of people and families. It's especially hard to get money for something like the competition. I think that's probably partly the reason. The other side is also that the very good ones are “chosen”. If you can show that you have exceptional talent and do something special, these guys will still be chosen.“In addition to economic difficulties, some young drivers probably look in the rearview mirror and find part of the reason.

Kovalainen arrived in F1 thanks to support from Renault early in his career, but that was no guarantee of success (as Loïc Duval and José-María López discovered), which only illustrates the challenge for the Finns.

Photo by: Renault F1

“You have to do something special every once in a while. I don't think you necessarily have to win every junior championship or every race you go to, but You have to do something exceptional, something that people will understand. Perhaps this is something that is also missing among children trying to make a career in Formula 1.“.

Make no mistake, Kovalainen doesn't mean it was easy for him. “It was pretty clear from the start that, As long as I did my job well enough and they were happy, they could advance my career, they could take me to the next level every time.», says the former Renault protégé. “But at the same time, there was a lot of competition. we were [seis] at the beginning and end of the program, I was the only one to go all the way and become a Formula 1 driver.

“I haven't won every championship I've competed in, but every year he's taken pole positions, won races and raised a few eyebrows. They liked it, and that was the key, basically, to getting me to the World Cup,” he continued.

More recently, the young Franco-Finnish Marcus-Amanda He shone in karting by winning the 2019 CIK-FIA European Championship in the OK-Junior category, but his career in single-seaters did not take off. Amand failed to achieve a victory in three years in Formula 4 and Formula Regional, and joined the Porsche Carrera Cup France last year.

A crucial fact is that this year there will be a Finn in the Formula 3: Tuukka Taponwho has been part of the Ferrari Driver Academy for two years. Taponen is a three-time Finnish karting champion and also won a world title in 2021. Last year he won the Formula Middle East Regional, then finished third in FRECA behind Rafael Camara and James Wharton, current and former young talents respectively under the Ferrari umbrella.

The 18-year-old driver from Lohja, 50 kilometers west of Helsinki, is now taking on F3 with the ART Grand Prix team, given the success of one of his compatriots in this championship (then called GP3) with the same team. “ART GP is a familiar team for the Finns. For example, Valtteri Bottas won the championship with them before moving to Formula 1.“, says Taponen. If he wanted to imitate him 14 years later, the young man would win the title as a 'rookie' before taking the plunge into the premier category in 2027…

Can Taponen become the next great Finnish F1 hope?

Photo by: ART Grand Prix