Rovanperä swaps jumps for kerbs: Toyota star to make 2026 Super Formula switch with KCMG, kicks off single-seater learning tour in New Zealand
The sport’s most intriguing crossover story just found a gear. Two-time World Rally champion Kalle Rovanperä will leave the forest for the front wing, committing to a full-time Super Formula campaign with Toyota-powered KCMG in 2026 — and he’s not waiting around to get up to speed.
The 25-year-old Finn starts his single-seater education this month in the Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Trophy, a compact, four-weekend blast through New Zealand’s best circuits from January into early February. The opener lands at Hampton Downs this weekend, where Rovanperä will take his first standing start, first lap one dive, first everything, really.
“So it begins. My first ever single seater race weekend is here!” he wrote on Facebook. “It’s going to be a busy month with lots to learn, but that’s exactly why we are here!”
Rovanperä, backed by Toyota Gazoo Racing, has been edging toward this moment for months. He tested Super Formula machinery and sampled Formula 2 late in 2025, a reconnaissance mission that set up this tidy bridge year: race craft, mileage and race-week rhythm in Oceania now; a full-blown Super Formula assault with KCMG next.
It’s a bold career pivot for rallying’s youngest ever World Champion, but the logic is clear. New Zealand’s TRS-based regional series packs multiple races into consecutive weekends, meaning tons of wheel-to-wheel reps — a currency rally drivers rarely spend. It’s ideal for a driver who needs to learn quickly, and who’s willing to look a little raw while doing it.
“The upcoming years will be the biggest challenge I have faced so far,” Rovanperä said when announcing the switch. “I will be stepping into the unknown and very far from my comfort zone which has been rallying for so long. But that’s also one of the reasons why I wanted to make this change. I want to learn new things, push my limits and I’m ready to give my all for this project!”
There’s a nice bit of symmetry in where he’s chosen to start. The Oceania Trophy closes with the New Zealand Grand Prix, a storied race dating back to 1950 that now lives under the TRS umbrella. Its winners’ list is serious business: seven Formula 1 World Champions, and on today’s F1 grid, both Lance Stroll and Liam Lawson count themselves among past victors. More recently, Supercars ace Will Brown took the NZGP last season, with fellow Supercars star Broc Feeney on pole and sixth at the flag — a reminder that the series rewards fast learners from outside the single-seater bubble.
Super Formula, though, is the destination. The Japanese series is famously quick — second only to F1 for outright pace — and punishing on drivers who aren’t precise. KCMG, long partnered with Toyota on the SF grid, offers Rovanperä a competitive, Toyota-aligned launchpad as he translates rally aggression into circuit discipline. If he nails that translation, the ceiling is high.
There will be noise around what this could mean down the line, particularly in a paddock watching 2026 regulations redraw the top tier. But the immediate task is simpler: learn the language of downforce, live in the data, get elbows-out in traffic and make mistakes fast enough to not repeat them. Hampton Downs is stop one; by the time the NZGP rolls around, we’ll have a much better read on how quickly Rovanperä can compress a decade of single-seater habits into a few feverish weeks.
For now, rounds 1, 2 and 3 run across January 10-11 as part of the opening weekend’s busy schedule. Expect curiosity everywhere he goes, and a few raised eyebrows if the lap times come early. He’s swapping recce notes for telemetry traces — and that adventure starts now.
