The Finnish Rally Championship will return to Riihimäki in February 2026 – two rallies in one event

Next year, the Finnish Rally Championship points will be contested in the final round of the winter season on February 28th in Riihimäki and the surrounding municipalities. The big innovation is that the rally can also be driven more affordably in Riihimäki on a shortened route.

After a year's break, the Finnish Championship points race will once again take place in Riihimäki and the surrounding municipalities next year. The 46th Riihimäki Rally is one of the iconic events of our national rally series, where Finnish Championship points were first competed for in 1962. Next year, the rally will exceptionally take place at the end of February instead of the traditional January.

The route director of the upcoming Finnish Championship rally, Juha Salmi, and the course masters, Riku Bitter and Janne Kilpinen, have built an interesting route for the competitors. This is a two-day competition event, with Friday, February 27, reserved for pre-acquaintance with the route, while the race will take place on Saturday, February 28.

The start, finish and service areas of the upcoming Finnish Championship rally are located in Riihimäki. The route consists of eight special stages. One urban special stage may still be added, but its fate will be decided later.

– The rally will consist of three legs and eight special stages, meaning that the competitors will be serviced twice in Riihimäki during the rally. The route will go around the neighboring municipalities of Loppi, Hausjärvi, Janakkala and partly also in Hämeenlinna, the track masters say.

In Riihimäki, competitors will be able to drive a rally instead of long transition sections. The compact route built on traditional rally roads in Kanta-Häme has been completely fitted within a radius of just over 20 km from Riihimäki. Only one short 3,5 km road section will be driven twice in the rally, while all other special stages can be driven once.

– The route is really compact. Its total length is 209 km, of which 99,5 km are special stages. There are new sections of road that have never been driven before, as well as old sections that have been driven a long time ago. It has been great to see how enthusiastically the landowners and road maintenance authorities in the areas set out to build our traditional rally event with us. A big thank you to them for their good cooperation at this stage, the track masters say.

A big innovation is that the SM Riihimäki Rally can also be run in a shortened version in February.
– To save costs, it is also possible to drive a shortened version of our rally with a lower registration fee, with fewer classes available. Overall, there is such a comprehensive number of competition classes that everyone who wants to can definitely take part.

In the Finnish motorsports championship, the Rally Championship, there will be a total of seven races in the 2026 season, the first three of which will be held in the winter season and the next four in the summer season.