ESPN.com · Aug 3, 2023
Rallying at 8, champ at 22, Rovanperä is WRC's next prodigy
Kalle Rovanperä became the World Rally Championship's youngest-ever champion when he won the 2022 title at 22 years old.The motorsport world is full of ridiculously young defending world champions. Max Verstappen defending a second title at 25 years old, though, is basically ancient compared to Kalle Rovanperä, the reigning World Rally champion.
At just 22 years old, Rovanperä is in his fourth full season at the highest level of rallying. That in no way tells the full story, considering he made his first entry to a top-grade stage in 2017, debuting on the brutally unforgiving courses of the Great Britain Rally the moment he'd passed the test to receive his driving license.