Work | The rally is good for jämpt and control freak Janni Huss – that's why he's hoping for snow

Rovaniemi

Traditional The Arctic Lapland Rally, or more commonly known as the Mountain Rally, started on Friday morning in sunshine and a few degrees of frost.

The beautiful winter weather is especially to the liking of the drivers, but those competing in the SM1 class Lauri Joonan map reader Janni Hussi would rather do his work in the heavy snow.

“I'd rather try here for the first time than in Sweden,” Hussi said, referring to the World Cup rally in mid-February.

“However, this is a test race for us, so my personal goal is to get as wide a range of different experiences as possible.”

Hussi's wish for snowfall will come true on Saturday in Kemijärvi.

Fell rally serves as a real winter rally for drivers looking for snowy conditions before the Swedish rally.

The special features of “Tunturi” include very fine ice dust, which remains floating on the rapids. The winter setting pleases Huss, for whom snow is a pleasant platform.

“The ride in the car is quite soft. It dances nicely on top of the snow, I really like it,” he said.

“The weather was so bad in Nuot that it was really going to be snow-blind, so of course that brings its own challenges.”

In the dark, snow reflects light in a completely different way compared to gravel or asphalt, which pleases Huss.

The first ones Hussi gained his winter rally experience last winter in the SM series with a former F1 driver Heikki Kovalainen as a map reader.

How can a map reader prepare for snow blindness? By trusting the note, Hussi summarized.

“The more experience you get, the better your gut feel and you really dare to trust that if it's 350 meters, it's 350 meters,” he said.

“Then you just have to calm down the situation. As Marko [Salminen] said, such a certain peace must be preserved.”

Hussi, 32, started his career as a map reader Sami Pajarin as a map reader in 2022. Hussi already competed with Joona last season.

Hussin according to him, the cooperation with Joona has gone “incredibly well”.

“All [kuljettajat] are their own personalities, just like each of us as people. Late and I share a similar positive outlook on life,” Hussi described.

“Something must be really special if the position of Late's nose goes in a negative direction. He is a really ambitious athlete who i
s great to work with.”

Hussi himself wants to develop into a map reader as good as possible. He understands that he knows the basics and also tries to trust that.

“At the same time, I try to push aside my own impostor syndrome, which has overshadowed my entire life. I strive to improve all the time and always have something new to learn.”

Last year, Janni Hussi worked as a map reader for Heikki Kovalainen, a well-known Formula 1 driver. Picture: JUSSI HELTTUNEN

Third Hussi, who has been touring rallies as a map reader for a year, added that he is aware that he cannot be as good and experienced as Salminen or Miikka Anttila.

Hussi described rally car driving as a sport for which you can prepare up to a certain point. Then things happen that you would never have thought of or expected.

“This is really good for me in the sense that I'm such a jerk and in a certain way a control-freak person,” he said.

“At some point, you have to say that I can't prepare for this, and then we'll live with it.”

Jonah and Hussi have driven about 200 test kilometers on snow before the Tunturi Rally. After the downhill rally, Huss's program is to do homework for the Swedish rally.

“Karttur has quite a lot to do before the rally: studying the road book, drawing the map and planning the schedule. You have to know and feel the whole competition,” he said.

“That's my plan for next week. I sit at the computer and study the materials.”