Janni Huss’ feat has one big question mark – the Finnish legend is the only one to say it out loud

Kalle Rovanperän map reader Jonne Halttunen welcomes Janni Huss to the World Rally Championship.

The reigning world champion considers the 32-year-old social media personality’s love for rally driving to be a great thing for the entire sport.

– Hats off to Janni for daring to seize such opportunities. It takes a lot of strength of character to rise so quickly to the World Championship level, Halttunen praises.

Hussi’s progress as a rally karter has been incredible. He participated in his first competition more than a year ago. After reading the notes For Sami Pajar and Heikki Kovalainen Hussi continues his career Lauri Joonan as a map reader in the WRC2 series.

Huss was supposed to make his debut in the World Cup already next weekend, but after Joona hurt himself in a test accident this week, the first contact will be postponed to next year.

As a map reader who has reached such a high level, Huss has very little experience, but according to Halttunen, that is not a problem.

– Back in the day Anders Jäger was very inexperienced when he came up by Andreas Mikkelsen as a map reader. And it was about the main series, says Halttunen.

Too early?

Risto Mannisenmäki on the other hand, considers Huss’s rally experience too little for the World Series.

Mannisenmäki won two world championships Tommi Mäkinen alongside at the end of the 1990s. Mannisenmäki, who trained young rally talents after his professional career, brings up Huss’s limited racing experience.

There are only a handful of SM rallies and a few lower international class races. It seems to Mannisenmäki like a really thin cover under the World Cup debut looming ahead, if the goal is success.

– After all, that hustle is a small question mark with that kind of experience, says Mannisenmäki.

Mannisenmäki became Mäkinen’s map reader for the 1998 season. At that point, he had already accumulated years of experience with sheet music.

– If I had been kicked alongside Tommi after one year spent in the SM series, I don’t even dare to think what would have happened. However, these cannot be compared with each other, says Mannisenmäki.

The cooperation between Huss and Joona is guaranteed to bring media visibility. Mannisenmäki believes that it weighs a lot on the scale.

However, in Mestarikarttur’s opinion, it should not be the most important thing in the employment relationship when the goal is success.

We grow into situations

Markku Alénin along with 19 competition wins Ilkka Kivimäki reminds us that rallying is a sport where situations are constantly changing. Experience is helpful in surprising situations, but even a driver or map reader who has seen everything can encounter something new in every rally.

– You can practice things in advance, but you grow into situations, says Kivimäki.

Kivimäki says that one of the important tasks of a map reader is to act as a balancing force for the driver. When one lives with emotion, the other has to use reason.

Joona is last year’s WRC3 class champion.

– It must be remembered that Janni has a master level man by his side. Janni’s responsibility is to read the music so that the driver does not have to adjust the music reading rhythm, says Kivimäki.

More than just sheet music

The work of a map reader is much more than just reading sheet music.

According to Haltusen, it is actually the easiest part of the job description.

– There is an incredible amount of preparation work before the rally. For example, I and the other map readers of the top drivers in the World Championship carefully study the road books provided to us by the organizers. There may be errors in their directions or the timetables are made to be very challenging. Our task is to plan how everything goes as smoothly as possible outside of special tests, says Halttunen.

In the WRC2 class, the situation is certainly not that tight, so Huss doesn’t have to try to raise his own performance to Halttunen’s level in his debut.

In Halttunen’s opinion, Hussin should continue on his current path and constantly develop himself into a better map reader.

– With a good attitude and desire to learn, you can dramatically shorten your own learning path. Janni has taken his first steps in his career as a rally karter in a great way, says Halttunen.

According to Risto Mannisenmäki, continuous development is a mandatory requirement if Hussi wants to rise to the top of the sport.

– The higher the goals are, the more challenging things become. I don’t know exactly what Joona and Huss’ goals are, but it’s unlikely that they just want to do the sport, Mannisenmäki says.

– Janni, like every young cartographer of course, has to accept that there will be mistakes. We must learn from them. As the old saying goes, before you can run, you have to learn to walk, Halttunen describes.