18 Facts About Toni Gardemeister

Toni Gardemeister was born on 31 March 1975 and is a Finnish professional rally driver in the World Rally Championship.

Toni Gardemeister won the Finnish Rally Championship Group a title in 1997 behind the wheel of a Nissan Sunny and was driving for the Spanish car firm SEAT for limited outings in 1998 with the Ibiza.

Toni Gardemeister was to become a world championship mainstay by the year 2000 in the firm's Cordoba WRC as team-mate to former world champion Didier Auriol.

Toni Gardemeister was drafted into Mitsubishi Ralliart team in Finland and New Zealand.

Toni Gardemeister was to drive the Octavia WRC throughout 2002 and 2003, reuniting with Auriol, as well as the Fabia WRC in 2004.

However, with former Peugeot star Marcus Gronholm already signed to drive the 2006-specification factory Focus RS WRC, the news in November 2005 that Mikko Hirvonen had been signed to drive the second car in 2006 meant that Toni Gardemeister would have to find a drive elsewhere.

Toni Gardemeister finished the season a career-best fourth in the drivers' world championship, scoring twice as many points as his team-mate Roman Kresta.

Toni Gardemeister went on to compete in three more world rallies driving a Citroen Xsara WRC, finishing fourth in Greece and Germany, and finishing fifth in Cyprus.

Toni Gardemeister quickly performed, finishing seventh in only their second rally, the 2008 Swedish Rally.

For 2009, Toni Gardemeister participated in only 2 rallies of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge.

Toni Gardemeister retired because of technical problems from 2nd place, 2 special stages before the finish.

Toni Gardemeister surprisingly won the prologue but retired from 10th place on SS11.

Toni Gardemeister raced at WRC Rally Finland with a Ford Fiesta S2000, finishing 12th overall.

Toni Gardemeister missed only two rounds, the SATA Rally Azores and the Cyprus Rally; on all the others, he finished inside the top ten, his season best 6th place coming in Barum Rally Zlin.

Toni Gardemeister sometimes complained that the works Skodas had a technical advantage over the marque's privateer drivers, because of certain updates they couldn't get.

Toni Gardemeister tried to put together the budget he needed to return to the IRC in 2012, but with Hankook leaving his team, his efforts were unsuccessful.

Toni Gardemeister started to focus on renting out his Skoda, and entered some rally-raid events with various Mitsubishi cars, and achieved some good results.

Toni Gardemeister underwent a successful surgery to repair his back, and after a 9-month recovery, he is just as good as he was.