HELSINKI — Hannu Mikkola, the 1983 rally world champion and considered one of Finland’s rally greats who earned the nickname the “Flying Finn” and worldwide renown in a driving profession spanning greater than 30 years, has died. He was 78.

Mikkola’s son Vesa Mikkola, a former rally driver, tweeted Saturday that “we misplaced my father Hannu to most cancers this weekend. Most knew him as a rallying nice who ushered within the golden years of the game. To me he was dad.”

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Mikkola began his driving profession in Volvo vehicles within the early Nineteen Sixties however made his repute driving a collection of Ford Escorts in world rally occasions within the Nineteen Seventies, together with a win within the East African Safari Rally in Kenya in 1972 and a British Rally Championship in 1978.

On his dwelling turf, he received Finland’s 1,000 Lakes Rally on seven events amongst different achievements.

Mikkola was on the forefront of the four-wheel drive revolution in world rallying and claimed the 1983 title in an Audi Quattro, the primary for an all-wheel drive automobile in FIA World Rally Championship historical past.

He later teamed up with the Mazda staff earlier than retiring from skilled motor sports activities within the early Nineteen Nineties.

Mikkola made 123 WRC begins — with a complete of 18 wins — and continued to compete as a visitor driver at quite a lot of occasions till 2017, WRC stated in a press release following his loss of life.

Information of Mikkola’s loss of life prompted a number of homages from his former colleagues and followers world wide and in Finland, a motor sports activities powerhouse that has produced a number of Components One and rally champions.

The organizers of the WRC Arctic Rally that came about over the weekend in Rovaniemi in Finland’s Lapland area, noticed a one-minute’s silence on the podium in tribute to Mikkola.

As well as, the Finnish Air Pressure’s F-18 Hornet fighter jets performed a memorial flyover on the venue in honor of one of many Nordic nation’s most well-known rally drivers.

FIA President Jean Todt, a former rally driver, attended the occasion and in a tweet known as Mikkola “a legendary driver and a lifelong buddy.”