Rally Legend To Drive Hydrogen In The Next WRC

Even if you are a fairly hardcore enthusiast of rally driving you could be forgiven for not immediately recognizing the name of 4-time WRC champion Juha Kankkunnen. The Finnish legend was ubiquitous on the world circuits in the 80s and 90s but his last time to top the podium was in 1993. The sporting great continued racing regularly into the late 90s with his last significant win in the 1999 Rally Finland. He has been mostly off the circuits since then, although he did make a return at the age of 51 in the 2010 Rally Finland. The veteran came in 8th beating many of the younger WRC regulars of the time.

Guess who’s back?

With that impressive return in 2010, it's no surprise that the hardy Finn jumped at the chance to occupy the limelight again, this time to make a statement about the performance capabilities of hydrogen-fuelled cars. This time Juha will be 63 years of age when he steps into the driver's seat but although he will be competing each day he will be only taking the wheel for one stage of the rally each day.

Hydrogen cars can’t race
 

Believe it or not, hydrogen cars have been around since 1807, and the principles behind their construction since 1802. If this is the case then surely the technology is known and has been outclassed by conventional petroleum-based combustion engines for a very long time. The debate is over, right? Not so. After many false starts the first mainstream hydrogen-powered vehicle was created in 1939 by British engineer Francis Thomas Bacon. Then in 1941, the Soviet Union began converting a small fleet of trucks to hydrogen fuel use due to gasoline shortages during WWII. The technology has continued to develop since then with General Motors creating the GM Electrovan in 1966.

Hydrogen car developments since the year 2000

The main criticism of hydrogen cars as a mainstream alternative to diesel, petrol, and fossil fuel-powered electric vehicles has been the cost. The expense of manufacturing the vehicle being one, the cost of fuel production another.As with all technology, however, costs tend to come down over time. In 2008 Honda claimed to have made a 60% energy efficiency level in a Honda FCX Clarity car. Their hope at the time was that this could become the world's first commercially viable hydrogen fuel cell vehicle for the mass market.

Their forecast then was that within a decade hydrogen cars would become cost-efficient. We've already arrived at this point and passed it, with the consequences of ignoring this technology becoming more evident by the month as gas and energy prices for conventional fuels soar to historic highs. By 2019 hydrogen fuelling stations, metropolitan bus fleets, and national budget allocations for research and transition to hydrogen fuel vehicles have been popping up all over the world from Iceland and the UK to China and Japan.

Ambasador for the fuel of the future

Juha Kankkunnen has been dividing his time since retirement between his home in the racing hub of Monaco and his family farm in Laukaa, Finland. Driving for one of his old rally teams, he will debut a Toyota GR Yaris H2 in Ypres, Belgium on August 18th and then drive the car for one stage each day of the race from the 18th to the 21st. The Yaris will be driven as a test car before each of the stages and allow the Finn to give the world his feedback on how this technology performs under the extreme conditions of rally driving.

Not the first hydrogen rally for Toyota

Japan is one of the countries leading the charge when it comes to driving hydrogen fuel cell vehicles forward and this is not the first time they have used both high-profile races and drivers to showcase the technology. As of 2017, Japan had already installed 91 usable hydrogen fuel cell public recharging stations across the country. This has increased to 166 by 2022. This may not sound like much for a country of over 125 million people but when we compare it to the USA, it's actually quite significant. 

The world is changing and companies like Toyota are planning to be one of the driving forces behind that change. In the Fuji 24 Hours earlier this year in June, a hydrogen-fuelled Toyota GR Corolla H2 participated in the race. Jari-Matti Latvala, the Toyota WRC boss was in the car on that occasion and is a big personal believer in the future of hydrogen-fuelled vehicles in rally racing. “It will be interesting to see the GR Yaris H2 in action”, he said. “It was exciting for me to compete in the Fuji 24 Hours together with Akio and now we have the chance to demonstrate the same technology on the rally stages. I would love to have driven the car myself but with my focus on the rally, I’m looking forward to hear what Juha Kankkunen makes of driving a hydrogen-fuelled car.” I think we can all share that view. Let's hope the drive and the race go well for everybody involved.