Quote Originally Posted by Lundefaret View Post
Not by a mile. Finland is the only country in the World where Rally is seen as a national sport. The only two countries I can think of that actually come close is Barbados and Ireland.
Though France has had two great champions, rally by no means a competitor of bigger sports like soccer.

Finland is the rally capital of the world, and by being that, and a country that can manage huge technological engineering feats (like Nokia), Finland can be a great place to run a rally team from.
The national sport of Finland is ice hockey. Rally was the national sport maybe in the 70's and 80's, but not anymore. The regular people hardly knows the names of the Finnish drivers nowadays.

In many ways the Finns are stuck in the 80's and 90's in rallying. They still believe the same path for the success which was used during the years of success. But it's a different world now. Our French friends develop the sport from the hobby level to the top-level sport.

Finland was to be the mental home of rallying, now it is the mental developing country of the rally world. Unfortunately.