Yokohama Rubber supporting WRC champion Kalle Rovanperä in FORMULA DRIFT JAPAN opening round

The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd., announced today that it will be supplying its global flagship ADVAN brand tires and wheels to Kalle Rovanperä for his participation in the opening round of this year’s FORMULA DRIFT® JAPAN (hereafter, FDJ), to be held on April 6-7 at the Fuji International Speedway in Shizuoka Prefecture. Rovanperä will be participating in the Red Bull GR COROLLA from KR69 CUSCO Racing.

Kalle Rovanperä is a rally driver from Finland. Having mastered drifting techniques at the age of eight, Rovanperä has deep knowledge of drift competition and has participated in the Drift Masters European Championship series. He began full participation in the World Rally Championship (WRC) in 2020 as a driver for the TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team. He finished the 2021 season with two victories and an overall fourth place driver’s ranking and won the drivers’ championship in 2022 and 2023.

Yokohama Rubber will be supplying Rovanperä with the ADVAN NEOVA AD09, YOKOHAMA’s ultimate street custom-tuned tires, which has a well-balanced combination of enhanced levels of dry grip, controllability, and wear resistance. The supplied tires will come fitted with ADVAN Racing GT BEYOND aluminum sports wheels. Yokohama Rubber expects its support for Kalle Rovanperä, who is attracting global attention as a phenomenal young driver competing in drifting competitions that require the most advanced techniques, to help raise recognition of the ADVAN brand as a tire with superior performance.

FDJ is an international version of the FORMULA DRIFT® series held in the United States. FDJ, held since 2014, essentially is a reverse import from the US FORMULA DRIFT®, which has elevated the popularity of drift driving, a motorsport that originated in Japan.

The consumer tire strategy in Yokohama Rubber’s new three-year (2024–2026) medium-term management plan, Yokohama Transformation 2026 (YX2026), aims to maximize the sales ratios of high-value-added tires by expanding sales of YOKOHAMA’s global flagship ADVAN brand, the GEOLANDAR brand of tires for SUVs and pickup trucks, winter tires, and 18-inch and larger tires. Yokohama Rubber positions participation in motorsports activities as crucial to its effort to further strengthen the ADVAN and GEOLANDAR brands. Yokohama Rubber therefore is again participating in a wide variety of motorsports events around the globe, from top-category to grassroots events.