Now, this is a heavy one to take in. The 35-year-old Esapekka Lappi announced on Tuesday that his professional rally career is coming to an end this season, bringing a definitive close to a top-flight chapter featuring 95 WRC starts, two outright victories, and 15 podium finishes.
As Lappi put it himself, after many years behind the wheel it is time to focus on family and life outside of rallying, though he never says never. Before walking away entirely, he has one final appearance lined up: the last round of the Finnish Rally Championship in Porvoo, which he calls his Last Dance.
His 2026 campaign saw him combine a successful defense of his domestic crown with a five-round WRC program for Hyundai Motorsport. Driving an i20 N Rally1 alongside co-driver Enni Mälkönen, he took sixth in Sweden and fourth at Safari Rally Kenya before heading to Estonia, Finland, and Chile. That sixth-place finish in South America now stands as his final WRC appearance for the time being. Prior to that, Lappi and Mälkönen already locked down their second consecutive Finnish championship with a round to spare by winning every single stage of August’s Kitee Rally in a Škoda Fabia RS Rally2.
The career that brought him here goes back a long way. The Finn started out in rally sprints in 2007 and made his WRC debut on home soil four years later. A dominant 2012 season followed where he won all seven rounds of the Finnish Rally Championship, earning him a spot in Škoda’s factory program. From there, he claimed the European Rally Championship title in 2014 and the WRC2 crown in 2016, which opened the door to rallying’s highest level with Toyota GAZOO Racing the next year.
He made an immediate impact in the Yaris WRC, taking a hugely popular maiden victory at Secto Rally Finland in just his fourth round with Toyota. A career-best fifth in the 2018 drivers’ championship followed, and his journey eventually took him through stints with Citroën and M-Sport Ford before returning to Toyota for select outings in 2021 and a fuller campaign in 2022. He then landed at Hyundai ahead of the 2023 season, where he secured his second career WRC victory at Rally Sweden in 2024—ending a wait of more than six-and-a-half years since his home triumph and delivering an emotional first win for Hyundai.
Across nine seasons at the absolute top of the sport, Lappi represented four different manufacturers and picked up 77 stage victories. While the majority of those milestones came alongside long-time co-driver Janne Ferm, it was Mälkönen who shared the cockpit for the final chapter of his remarkable career.
