Opinions on Kalle Rovanperä's prospects are divided.

      Ten days ago Finnish driver Kalle Rovanperä, a two-time WRC champion, celebrated his 25th birthday, and shortly thereafter announced that he had decided to leave the World Rally Championship and continue his career in circuit racing.

      The editorial team of the British outlet The Race gathered the opinions of its journalists about Kalle, who has long been nicknamed "the Max Verstappen of world rally" – and not only because he remains the youngest rally winner and the youngest champion. He also comes from a racing dynasty: his father is Harri Rovanperä, who competed in the WRC for quite a long time, although he has only one win to his name.

      Despite the big differences in the sporting biographies of Rovanperä and Colton Herta, he is compared to this American, who signed a reserve driver contract with Cadillac F1: Colton is also set to make his Formula 2 debut next year. In Kalle's case it's about the Japanese Super Formula series, through which, for example, Pierre Gasly and Liam Lawson have come.

      Here is one of the opinions: "If his real goal is Formula 1, then the likelihood that Rovanperä will succeed is even lower than Herta's. He will have to take a longer path and exert even more effort. Super Formula is an extremely demanding discipline, and F2 after it will become yet another challenge, and of a completely different nature."

      However, if Kalle continues to surprise the racing world with results in circuit series – emphasis on the word "if" – then in the long term his chances of moving to F1 may well emerge, and be higher than Herta's.

      The logic behind this thesis is understandable: Colton is tied only to the Cadillac programme. And the Finnish driver receives financial backing from both Red Bull, which has two teams in Formula 1, and the Japanese corporation Toyota, which is expanding technical cooperation with Haas F1.

      But here is a slightly different opinion: why bother asking what Rovanperä will ultimately achieve, what successes he will reach in circuit racing? Perhaps it is more correct simply to watch with interest the process of a decidedly talented and fast driver moving from one category to a completely different one.

      After all, even Kalle himself does not yet know what awaits him, but there is no doubt that he will make the most of the opportunity presented to him and will do everything in his power to that end.

      Moreover, this is becoming something of a new trend: Max Verstappen has already won a race on the Nürburgring Nordschleife behind the wheel of a Ferrari GT3 car, and the aforementioned Colton Herta from IndyCar is moving to Formula 2.

      At the same time one cannot underestimate the scale of the difficulties Kalle will need to overcome: after all, rallying is a completely different school, and in circuit racing there is now a whole generation of young talents who have been diligently karting since early childhood and have achieved much precisely in circuit disciplines.

      One of the important differences of rallying is that a WRC-category car must be driven at the limit while constantly adapting every second to changing conditions. In circuit racing, however, you need to constantly extract from the car everything it is capable of, aided by high safety standards, including run-off areas on many tracks, which give the driver some margin for error.

      The Race cites the opinion of Emanuele Pirro, a former driver and now FIA President of Single-Seater Racing: "Young drivers are increasingly rooted in this mindset that you must constantly drive at the limit, and it is becoming ever harder for them to gauge their pace. Why does a driver who moves from circuit racing to rallying so often end up in accidents? Because in rallying you cannot constantly race at maximum speed."

      It turns out that Rovanperä will have to reorient in the opposite direction and learn to apply approaches not typical of WRC drivers. And throughout the whole period of "apprenticeship" he will be in a catch-up position.

      However, the scale of the young Finn's racing talent should not be underestimated, and since he himself made such a decision, it means he believes in his own abilities. It is also significant that his sponsors believe in him. In any case, it will be very interesting to watch his progress in Super Formula, in which only unquestionably talented guys achieve success.

      Races in this Japanese series have at different times been won by Pierre Gasly, who became vice-champion, Alex Palou, Pato O'Ward, and the most recent example – Liam Lawson. In 2023 the New Zealander also had real chances at the title, but he was simply a bit unlucky.

      Therefore, until Rovanperä begins work behind the wheel of a Super Formula car, there is no reason to predict his failure in advance: what if it is in circuit racing that new facets of his speed talent will be revealed? He's simply not had the opportunity to test that yet.