Toni Gardemeister

Toni Gardemeister (born 31 March 1975) is a Finnish professional

Career

Early

From the outset of his career Gardemeister had shown himself as a driver of some promise. He won the Finnish Rally Championship Group a (under 2000 cc) title in 1997 behind the wheel of a Nissan Sunny and was driving for the Spanish car firm SEAT for limited outings in 1998 with the Ibiza.

He was to become a world championship mainstay by the year

After securing a contract with the

Driving for the privateer Astra Racing team in a Peugeot 307 WRC with co-driver Jakke Honkanen, Gardemeister finished third in the 2006 Monte Carlo Rally, the first rally of the season. He went on to compete in three more world rallies driving a Citroën Xsara WRC, finishing fourth in Greece and Germany, and finishing fifth in Cyprus.

In the

Gardemeister resurfaced to the WRC full-time the following year. His hard work with privateer teams had not gone unnoticed, as the new

Along with an eighth place in Finland and another seventh in New Zealand, Gardemeister also achieved Suzuki's first WRC stage win in Japan and finished sixth overall behind his team-mate PG Andersson. This marked Suzuki's best points finish and points haul of the 2008 season, on the team's home event. After the event, Toni said: "This has been a very tough but a very good rally for us, which has confirmed what I always thought: when we have a nice clean run with no problems, we are able to fight for a good position. I was also really proud to set Suzuki's first fastest stage time on Saturday. Given that we have not even finished our first full year yet and that we have done no testing, it really shows our potential for the future." With Suzuki retiring from motorsport before season 2009, Gardemeister lost his drive.

2009–10

For 2009, Gardemeister participated in only 2 rallies of the

Fiat Grande Punto Abarth S2000. He surprisingly won the prologue but retired from 10th place on SS11. He also raced at WRC Rally Finland with a Ford Fiesta

S2000, finishing 12th overall.

2011–present

In 2011, he entered the Rallye Monte Carlo with an Astra Racing-run Peugeot 207 S2000, and finished in 10th place. After that, he bought himself a Škoda Fabia S2000 and launched his own team, TGS Worldwide OU; his main sponsors were Mad Croc and

Barum Rally Zlín. He sometimes complained that the works Škodas had a technical advantage over the marque's privateer drivers, because of certain updates they couldn't get.^[2]

He finished the season 9th overall.

Gardemeister tried to put together the budget he needed to return to the IRC in 2012, but with Hankook leaving his team, his efforts were unsuccessful. He started to focus on renting out his Škoda, and entered some

vertebrae

. Gardemeister underwent a successful surgery to repair his back, and after a 9-month recovery, he is just as good as he was.

Now after his accident on 2012 he has been running successfully his TGS Worldwide company. TGS Worldwide has been concentrate to run mainly Skoda brand cars. First Fabia S2000 and after R5 models. There have been lot of young talents on the team on their early stages..such as a names as Teemu Suninen, Kalle Rovanperä, Juuso Nordgren, Eerik Pietarinen, Pontus Tidemand, and few young talents more.

Results

WRC results

Year	Entrant	Car	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	WDC	Points
1996	Toni Gardemeister	Opel Astra GSI 16V	SWE	KEN	IDN	GRC	ARG	FIN Ret	AUS	ITA	ESP								-	0
1997	Toni Gardemeister	Nissan Sunny GTI	MON	SWE Ret	KEN	POR	ESP	FRA	ARG	GRC	NZL	FIN 12	IDN	ITA	AUS	GBR			-	0
1998	Promoracing Finland	Nissan Sunny GTI	MON	SWE 21	KEN	POR	ESP	FRA	ARG	GRC									-	0
	SEAT Sport	SEAT Ibiza GTI 16V Evo 2									NZL 16	FIN 14	ITA Ret	AUS Ret	GBR 16
1999	Toni Gardemeister	SEAT Ibiza GTI 16V Evo 2	MON 14																12th	6
	Astra			SWE 33	KEN	POR Ret	ESP	FRA	ARG	GRC
	SEAT Sport	SEAT Córdoba WRC									NZL 3
		SEAT Córdoba WRC Evo2										FIN 6	CHN	ITA Ret	AUS 16	GBR Ret
2000	SEAT Sport	SEAT Córdoba WRC Evo2	MON 4	SWE Ret	KEN Ret	POR 9	ESP Ret	ARG Ret	GRC Ret	NZL Ret									13th	4
		SEAT Córdoba WRC Evo3									FIN Ret	CYP Ret	FRA 11	ITA Ret	AUS 6	GBR 12
2001	Toni Gardemeister	Peugeot 206 WRC	MON 5	SWE 4	POR	ESP	ARG	CYP	GRC	KEN									16th	5
	Marlboro Mitsubishi Ralliart	Mitsubishi Carisma GT									FIN Ret	NZL 15	ITA	FRA	AUS	GBR
2002	Škoda Motorsport	Škoda Octavia WRC Evo2	MON 10	SWE Ret	FRA 12	ESP 11	CYP 15	ARG 5	GRE 10	KEN Ret									13th	3
		Škoda Octavia WRC Evo3									FIN 12	GER Ret	ITA Ret	NZL 8	AUS 6	GBR 10
2003	Škoda Motorsport	Škoda Octavia WRC Evo3	MON Ret	SWE 8	TUR 7	NZL 5	ARG 7	GRE Ret	CYP Ret										12th	9
		Škoda Fabia WRC								GER Ret	FIN Ret	AUS 11	ITA Ret	FRA 11	ESP 12	GBR Ret
2004	Škoda Motorsport	Škoda Fabia WRC	MON	SWE	MEX	NZL	CYP	GRE Ret	TUR	ARG	FIN 8	GER 7	JPN	GBR 22	ITA Ret	FRA 9	ESP 9	AUS	24th	3
2005	BP Ford World Rally Team	Ford Focus RS WRC 04	MON 2	SWE 3	MEX 6	NZL 6	ITA 5	CYP 5	TUR 6	GRE 2	ARG 4	FIN 6	GER 17	GBR DSQ	JPN 6	FRA 2	ESP 14		4th	58
		Ford Focus RS WRC 06																AUS Ret
2006	Astra Racing	Peugeot 307 WRC	MON 3	SWE	MEX	ESP	FRA	ARG	ITA										9th	20
		Citroën Xsara WRC								GRE 4	GER 4	FIN	JPN	CYP 5	TUR	AUS	NZL	GBR
2007	MMSP LTD	Mitsubishi Lancer WRC05	MON 7	SWE 6															13th	10
	Toni Gardemeister				NOR Ret	MEX	POR DSQ	ARG	ITA 6	GRE	FIN
	Astra Racing	Citroën Xsara WRC										GER 7	NZL	ESP	FRA	JPN	IRE	GBR
2008	Suzuki World Rally Team	Suzuki SX4 WRC	MON Ret	SWE 7	MEX Ret	ARG Ret	JOR Ret	ITA Ret	GRE 9	TUR Ret	FIN 8	GER 10	NZL 7	ESP 13	FRA 13	JPN 6	GBR 7		13th	10
2010	Toni Gardemeister	Ford Fiesta S2000	SWE	MEX	JOR	TUR	NZL	POR	BUL	FIN 12	GER	JPN	FRA	ESP	GBR				-	0

IRC results

Year	Entrant	Car	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	IRC	Points
2009	Astra Racing	Fiat Abarth Grande Punto S2000	MON Ret	CUR	SAF	AZO	YPR	RUS	MAD	ZLI	AST	ITA	SCO		-	0
2010	Astra Racing	Fiat Abarth Grande Punto S2000	MON Ret	CUR	ARG	CAN	SAR	YPR	AZO	MAD	ZLI	SAN	SCO	CYP	-	0
2011	Astra Racing	Peugeot 207 S2000	MON 10												9th	45
	TGS Worldwide OU	Škoda Fabia S2000		CAN 10	COR 8	YAL 7	YPR 7	AZO	ZLI 6	MEC 7	SAN 9	SCO 7	CYP

References

1. ^ WRC: Official: Suzuki names drivers for '08., motorsport news, results, features, teams, drivers, updates
2. ^ "Welcome to nginx eaa1a9e1db47ffcca16305566a6efba4!185.15.56.1". Archived from the original on 2013-02-16. Retrieved 2013-01-30.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Toni Gardemeister.

• Official website
• Profile at ewrc-results.com
• Statistics at WRC Archive