Markku Alén
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| Markku Alén | |
|---|---|
| World Rally Championship record | |
| Nationality |  Finnish |
| Active years | 1973 - 1993, 2001 |
| Teams | Fiat, Lancia, Subaru, Toyota |
| World rallies | 129 |
| Championships | 1 (1978) |
| Wins | 19 |
| Podium finishes | 56 |
| Stage wins | 774 |
| Points | 840 |
| First world rally | 1973 1000 Lakes Rally |
| First win | 1975 Rally Portugal |
| Last win | 1988 RAC Rally |
| Last world rally | 2001 Neste Rally Finland |
Markku Alén (born February 15, 1951 in Helsinki) is a former rally and race car driver born in Finland. He holds the record for most stage wins in the World Rally Championship. However, he never won the World Championship itself, despite being for a long time the most successful driver, with 19 wins to his credit. However, he did win the FIA Cup for Drivers in 1978, the precursor to the World Championship for Drivers established in 1979.
[edit] Career
Alén started his rallying career in 1969 driving a Renault 8 Gordini, and then a Volvo 142. His first professional drive was for Ford, establishing his reputation as a hard-charger on the RAC Rally in 1973 by finishing 3rd, despite a first-day accident that had dropped him to last place. In 1975 he moved to Fiat, and continued to drive Fiat and Lancia cars until 1989. He won the FIA Cup for Drivers in 1978, driving mainly for the Fiat works team.
After Fiat wound up their works rally team, Alén moved to the related Lancia team. In 1982 he debuted the marque's first of two Group B category homologated models, the Lancia 037, a rear-wheel drive car which was, in consequence, a particular performer on the championship's asphalt rounds. Alén's several wins with it in 1983 helped Lancia narrowly pip Audi and their four-wheel drive long wheelbase Quattro to that year's constructors' championship. Indeed it was Alén who was responsible for the car's final victory, on the 1984 Tour de Corse, in a year in which Audi retook both of the title honours, before it was replaced by the four-wheel drive Lancia Delta S4 from the final round, in Great Britain, of the 1985 season. Having become unequivocal team leader in the aftermath of team-mate Henri Toivonen's death in Corsica the following year, Alén narrowly lost the 1986 World Rally Championship to rival driver, Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 pilot Juha Kankkunen. Late in the season, Alén had been victorious on the San Remo rally only after Kankkunen's Peugeot team was excluded by the organizers on a controversial technicality. Peugeot subsequently appealed the exclusion to the FISA, which eventually annulled the results of the rally, stripping Alén of the World Championship title which he had held for just 11 days.
Alén remained at Lancia after the abolition of Group B at the end of 1986, and adapted successfully to the replacement Group A formula. He won three events in the Lancia Delta HF 4WD in 1987, but lost his chance to take second place in the world driver's championship after rolling his car in front of the TV cameras on the 1987 RAC Rally. He won another three events the following year, culminating in an emotional first victory on the RAC, an event he had been trying to win for fifteen years. It was to be his last world championship victory.
In 1990, Alén moved to the burgeoning Prodrive-run Subaru World Rally Team, and was responsible for many of the Subaru Legacy's early successes, including 4th on the 1990 1000 Lakes Rally, and a 3rd and two 4th places the following season. For 1992 he moved to the Toyota team, but found himself playing very much a supporting role to Carlos Sainz. The 1993 season found Alén without a full-time position, and he drove for Toyota and Subaru early in the season, taking 2nd place for Toyota on the Safari Rally and 4th for Subaru in Portugal. Along with fellow veteran and 1981 World Champion Ari Vatanen, he drove the Subaru Impreza on its debut event, the 1000 Lakes Rally. Unfortunately for Alén, he crashed on the first stage of the event. This effectively marked the end of his career as a top-line rally driver.
He drove two races of the International Touring Car Championship of 1995 for Alfa Romeo, driving the same number of races in DTM earlier that year. He also drove in Trophy Andros in 1996 and 1997.
To celebrate his 50th birthday in 2001, he entered that year's Neste Rally Finland, finishing in a respectable 16th place overall with a Ford Focus WRC. He has also participated in the Paris-Dakar rally twice in the truck class. Anton Alén, son of Markku, is driving a Super 2000 Fiat Punto in international IRC-serie. The father of Markku, Eero Alén was Finnish ice-track racing champion.
[edit] WRC wins
[edit] External links
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