Rauno Aaltonen – The full interview on life, rallying, racing, and driver training
Finland’s celebrated motor sport driver, Rauno Aaltonen, won many events and along with local Australia hero Bob Holden, in 1966 finished first in our famous touring car race at Bathurst’s Mt Panorama, in a tiny Mini Cooper S.
I recorded a chat with him for the “Overdrive – Cars, Transport and Culture” radio and podcast program – we chatted for over an hour. His range of subjects include:
Rauno is now 83 years old, still has an international racing licence and remains thoughtful and crystal clear about the right approach to racing and to life.
This is the full interview but below are selected highlights.
Selected segments
Using Bob Holden’s efforts and soft tyres to win Bathurst in 1966
Learning a circuit and rally versus race driving
Early experience in Boats & motorcycles helped touch bumper bars on Conrod straight
He invented left foot braking – he tells the benefits and changing style on the track
To win Bathurst Bob Holden was an equal partner – they thought alike
Facing adversity and driver training – it’s all about the right attitude
Racing and rallying partnerships – got help from a professor of communications!
The driving skills he used to deal with young people throwing rocks at the vehicle
He led briefly near the end but why he didn’t win the London to Sydney Marathon
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Geneva Motor Show – Super Cars and Mercedes development
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Car Parking Spaces In Units Near Stations
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Car features that are meant to be helpful but are not
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Jonathan (Jono) Coleman: Meeting Jeremy Clarkson and other motoring tales
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Ryan Falconer AITPM Perth 2018: Mobility as a Service: Not just profits for big companies
About Author
David Brown
David Brown started his working life as a Civil Engineer but you would not want him to design a bridge you wanted to safely walk over. His passion was in traffic engineering and transport planning which is all about how we use our transport systems not how we build them. He soon became involved in commenting on issues through all avenues of the media. He is now a motoring and transport journalist. He test drives a new car each week but his ultimate measure of how good a car is relies on his 12 year old and the Hayden Brown “Will you drive me to school in that car” factor.