After 15 years together, sharing the same cockpit, Esapekka Lappi and Janne Ferm will no longer work together in the world of rallying.
Ferm, Esapekka’s navigator for fifteen years, said farewell to his profession yesterday, once the Chile Rally had finished. The third-to-last round of the 2024 WRC was therefore the last that saw them race together.
The partnership, born when both were just starting out, lasted for many years with ups and downs, in a career that in the WRC seemed to be able to give them much more, especially after the surprising victory obtained at the 2017 Finnish Rally on the Toyota Yaris WRC Plus.
Ups and downs, we were saying, which however Esapekka Lappi – and probably also Janne Ferm – will carry with them forever. At the end of the Chile Rally, Lappi dedicated a couple of thoughts to his co-driver, with whom he worked for years and shared indelible moments.
“It’s been 15 seasons together. I need to thank you for all the things we’ve been through together. It’s been a great journey. It’s been from the beginning, when we set our goals. We started from nothing and climbed the mountains becoming professionals, so thank you, thank you so much for all this.”
“It was magnificent. It was a real journey. And I thank you very much”, replied Ferm, moved. “But now you have to see it with someone else!”, continues the now former navigator, laughing.
“Our best memories are not only linked by things that went well, by victories and podiums. We are good friends, we also share time outside the cockpit. But during the race weekends we are truly full of exceptional memories. And It’s impossible to find one in particular. It would be very easy to say the victories, but the truth is that there are many, many other things that we must keep in our memories and that were special”, concluded Lappi.
Together, Esapekka Lappi and Janne Ferm became European champions in 2014 by winning the ERC. TWO years later, however, at the wheel of a Skoda Fabia R5 they managed to win the WRC2 title and in 2017 came not only their debut at the wheel of a WRC Plus at the Rally Italia Sardegna, but also the sensational victory in Finland.
To see the second victory of the Finnish crew we had to wait until this year’s Rally Sweden, where EP and Janne achieved their second and last WRC victory together. In the top rally category, Lappi and Ferm achieved, in addition to the 2 victories, 15 podiums, 77 special stages won and 570 points overall.
Now Lappi will have to look for a new navigator, but also understand what his future could be. In fact, it is not certain that he will continue to be one of the drivers in the rotation at Hyundai Motorsport.
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