Henri Toivonen: The Rally Star Behind Lancia's Delta S4 and the End of Group B

Henri Toivonen was a Finnish rally driver whose career ran from Talbot in 1980 to Lancia in 1986, and whose death on the 1986 Tour de Corse helped end the Group B era. He held the record as the youngest driver to win a world rally until 2008, and his fast, volatile style made him one of the most discussed drivers of his generation. This guide covers his early life, his works teams, the fatal crash and the legacy that followed.

Who was Henri Toivonen?

Henri Toivonen was born in Jyvaskyla on 25 August 1956 into a rallying family. His father, Pauli, had been crowned European rally champion in 1968 while driving for Porsche, and his brother Harri later raced on circuits. Henri began in karts and circuit racing before turning to rallies full-time.

Jyvaskyla is the home of Rally Finland, which the town has hosted since 1951, so the sport was part of daily life for him. Toivonen learned to drive at five and collected the Finnish touring car cup. He then moved into Formula Vee and claimed the 1977 Finnish Champion title in that class.

His family grew worried about the safety of circuit racing, and he switched to rallying full-time. Finnish law at the time limited new drivers to 80 km/h (50 mph) on open roads, so he could not compete in rallies until he was 19.

Three world rally wins, a fearless style and a crash that changed the sport for good.

How did his first rallies go?

Toivonen made his world championship debut in 1975 at the 1000 Lakes Rally, where a broken sump ended his event in a privately entered Simca. He finished fifth in the 1977 1000 Lakes driving a Chrysler Avenger, and in 1978 he took second at the Arctic Rally, 3:41 behind Ari Vatanen.

That same year he also won the Nordic Rally, a round of the Finnish championship, and entered two world championship rallies for Citroen without finishing either. A private Porsche team and Chrysler both offered him cars. In 1979 he entered 15 events across the British, Finnish and European series, plus two WRC rounds, one in a Fiat and one in a Ford.

Those results attracted the attention of Talbot, whose works team offered him a contract for 1980.

What did the Talbot and Opel years show?

Talbot gave him a limited programme in 1980, running his Sunbeam Lotus in four selected WRC events. He used three co-drivers that year in search of better results, and his finishes often did not reflect his speed. Crashes were frequent, and the team's experiment with partners did not solve the problem.

His win at the 1980 Lombard RAC Rally in late November surprised nearly everyone, including Toivonen. Before the event he had said a win would depend on luck and on rivals having trouble. His co-driver Paul White later said Des O'Dell ran the operation with 15 full-time staff, far smaller than rival works teams, so outside mechanics had to be brought in.

Talbot kept him for 1981 in a bigger programme with Fred Gallagher as co-driver. Four retirements were offset by second places at Rally Portugal and Sanremo, plus a fifth at Monte Carlo, which gave him seventh in the drivers' standings. Talbot won the manufacturers' title that year with help from the more consistent Guy Frequelin, and Toivonen took the Audi Sport International Rally that closed the British Open series.

In 1982 he moved to the Rothmans-backed Opel team, co-managed by David Richards, alongside Ari Vatanen, Walter Rohrl and Jimmy McRae. He led Rally Portugal on his Ascona 400 debut before retiring five stages from the finish, and he finished on the podium twice that year, at the Acropolis Rally and the RAC Rally. A Formula One test for March at Silverstone saw him 1.4 seconds quicker than the team's regular driver, Raul Boesel.

The 1983 Manta 400 was a Group B car, but it lacked the power of the Audi Quattro A2 and the Lancia 037. Even so, Toivonen won the Manx International Rally at his first attempt and took first at the Mille Pistes in France. Organisers then banned Group B cars halfway through, leaving him and co-driver Ian Grindrod with a consolation trophy. Later that year he also finished third at Mugello in a Porsche 956 entered by Richard Lloyd Racing.

Why did he move to Porsche for 1984?

His Opel spell brought ten starts, two podiums, three more top-six finishes and five retirements. He signed with the Rothmans Porsche factory team for the European Championship, which Prodrive ran. He won five rallies in a row and led the title, until a back injury forced him to rest and he finished second to Carlo Capone.

The Porsche campaign began with two retirements, then a third and a second place, before the winning run. The back injury was expected to keep him out for up to two months. Lancia boss Cesare Fiorio wanted him in the World Championship, and by the end of 1984 Toivonen had agreed to drive for Lancia full-time in 1985.

How did the Lancia years begin?

The 1985 season started badly. At the Rally Costa Smeralda he crashed his Lancia 037 into a brick wall, breaking three vertebrae in his neck. He came back in August at the 1000 Lakes Rally and finished fourth, then took third at Sanremo, his last outing in the 037.

Early that May, the Lancia team had lost Attilio Bettega, killed on the Tour de Corse. The 037 was rear-wheel drive with 242 kW (325 hp). Peugeot's car produced 440 hp and Audi's 500 hp, so the Lancia had fallen well behind. Its handling did not suit Toivonen's style, so it was swapped out for the RAC Rally, the season finale.

What made the Delta S4 suit him?

The Delta S4 was an all-wheel-drive car with both a supercharger and a turbocharger. The supercharger boosted power in the middle of the rev range and the turbo lifted it higher up. Toivonen won the 1985 RAC Rally in one, with Markku Alen second, 56 seconds behind, and that result lifted him to a career-best sixth in the championship.

Toivonen had found a car that matched his instincts, though he never fully trusted it. He said he had won the RAC Rally without really knowing how to drive the car, which seemed to have a will of its own. Fiorio later claimed Toivonen was the only driver who could truly control it. Toivonen also complained on television that the car was hard to drive on tarmac, where more power could have been put down.

The 1986 season opener and its aftermath

Toivonen opened 1986 with a dominant win on the Monte Carlo Rally alongside his new co-driver, Sergio Cresto. The event carried special meaning. His father had won it 20 years earlier, and ten cars, the first four finishers among them, had been disqualified over non-standard headlights. Prince Rainier of Monaco refused to attend that prize-giving. Pauli said the family name had finally been cleared.

He then retired from the lead in Sweden with an engine failure. In Portugal a Ford RS200 crashed into spectators, killing three and injuring more than 30. Toivonen and the other factory drivers withdrew, but Lancia objected and made clear it expected victories. Reports later claimed he had set an Estoril lap fast enough to qualify sixth for the Portuguese Grand Prix. MTV3 and ESPN examined that claim decades later and reached a sceptical conclusion.

By the start of May Toivonen had lost the championship lead. He had retired in Sweden, Lancia had withdrawn from Portugal and he had skipped the Safari Rally in Kenya. The Tour de Corse was his next event, and he insisted on driving.

What happened on the 1986 Tour de Corse?

On 2 May 1986, during the second leg of the Tour de Corse, Toivonen left a narrow road at a tight left-hand corner on the 18th stage and plunged into a ravine. The Lancia Delta S4 came to rest on its roof, its aluminium fuel tank ruptured and exploded, and both he and co-driver Sergio Cresto died in their seats.

The rally had begun on Thursday, 1 May, over 1,017 km of mountain roads. Toivonen had a sore throat and flu and was reported to be taking fever medicine. Even so, he had been winning stages and led by a large margin. He complained that the car, with about 600 hp, was too fast and powerful for the route, and he said the event was physically exhausting.

Walter Rohrl later confirmed that Toivonen had been taking medicine for his flu. Malcolm Wilson told Motorsport News that Toivonen had suffered blackouts since his 1985 neck injuries but had not told the team. At least one observer found no skid marks on the road, which fuelled speculation that he lost consciousness at the wheel. The cause has never been established.

The Delta S4 carried no skid plate under its fuel tank, a fitting used mainly on gravel rallies and left off for the all-asphalt Corsican event. The fire was so intense that the kevlar-reinforced plastic body could not be identified afterwards, and no marshals were close enough to notice the smoke. A spectator filmed the aftermath further down the stage, but the footage did not show the cause.

Toivonen left a wife, Erja, and two young children. Cresto was single with no children.

Why did the crash end Group B?

Within hours of the crash, FISA president Jean-Marie Balestre decided that Group B cars would not race in 1987. The planned Group S was cancelled, and Audi and Ford quit at once. Rival teams kept racing that season. The rally itself carried on the next day.

Bruno Saby went on to win the event in a Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 E2, a car from the class that was about to be banned. Commentators had warned for some time that drivers could not control cars of such power, and FISA drew criticism for acting late. A later inquiry found driver reactions too slow for the speeds reached, and eyes unable to refocus between fast corners. Others accused FISA of overreacting. In 2004, rally author John Davenport argued that Group B could have been tamed, and that the fuel system and crowd control were the real problems, not the cars.

The ban closed the Group B era, although rallying had never been more popular with spectators because the cars were so fast.

Career results at a glance

Toivonen's works career spanned four manufacturers and several championships. The table below lists his principal seasons.

Across 40 world rallies, Toivonen won three times, took nine podiums and 185 stage wins, and retired 22 times. His final five world rallies produced only wins or retirements, a sign of how close to the limit he was driving.

How is Toivonen remembered?

Toivonen is remembered through the Henri Toivonen Memorial Trophy, awarded each year to the winning individual driver at the Race of Champions, and through a memorial slab in Corsica. The Race of Champions was first held in his memory in 1988, organised by Michele Mouton.

The Race of Champions began as a contest for rally drivers, but it grew to include Formula One and NASCAR stars. A separate Henri Toivonen Grand Attack Trophy, linked to Peugeot's rally challenge and organised by Des O'Dell, went to the driver who most embodied the spirit of the young Finn.

On the Corsican roadside a marble slab marks the bend where he crashed, shared with a dedication to Cresto. An unopened bottle of Martini sits at the memorial, a reference to his Martini-sponsored Lancia team. As of 2006, a local resident was laying fresh flowers there every day.

In 2006 the Neste Oil Rally Finland honoured him, and an exhibition in his memory opened on 17 August in Jyvaskyla. His brother Harri attended, and had quit racing in 2002, ending the family's 40-year racing history. Eddie Jordan, whose Formula Three team had given Toivonen guest drives, called his performances incredible and compared him with Ayrton Senna.