🇫🇮 Emil Lindholm

A second-generation Finn who won a world championship in the most Finnish way available — by finishing third and letting the title come to him.

His father Sebastian drove in the world championship, which makes Emil one of several current competitors carrying a familiar surname into service parks where people remember the first one. He won the Finnish championship in 2021 and took the WRC2 title the following season, arriving at Rally Japan five points behind Andreas Mikkelsen and level on points with Kajetan Kajetanowicz. Kajetanowicz crashed out on the second stage with chassis damage too severe to restart; third place was then enough for Lindholm and co-driver Reeta Hämäläinen.

Škoda drivers filled the top three places in that championship and Toksport took the teams' title, so the win was less an upset than a reshuffle among equals. He collected the WRC2 Junior crown in the same year, which is the detail that argues the result was earned rather than inherited from someone else's bad afternoon.