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KALLE ROVANPERä VS FUJIWARA TAKUMI IN A TRUE JAPANESE TOUGE BATTLE.

Besides being the most popular energy drink on the planet, Red Bull does more for motorsport and action sports than any other company. The Austrian company sponsors more events than we can count and has a long list of sponsored athletes under its banner, from skateboarders to kite surfers to downhill mountain bikers and, of course, drivers in just about any form of motorsport there is. They don’t just chuck money at people though, under the awesome Red Bull Content Pool, they produce some of the coolest content you can find on the internet by putting high-profile drivers up against top YouTubers, celebs and pop culture icons in various awesome challenges - all captured perfectly. We’ve seen Formula One drivers taking an F1 car through city streets, drifting around tracks, racing a drone, driving through deserts and more. This time around, the Red Bull chaps have roped in WRC driver Kalle Rovanperä and let him loose on an iconic touge road in Japan. To make it a little more exciting, not that they needed to, a little AI help sees one of the cars looking like Fujiwara Takumi’s Toyota AE86 from Initial D. Ahhh, technology. Here’s what went down…  

Two-time World Rally Champion Kalle Rovanperä celebrates his passion for Japanese culture by battling local car culture icons through a series of challenges to face his idol – Initial D – on a winding mountain road in Japan. The Finnish rally protégé took on Mount Iwaki in Aomori Prefecture, navigating the challenging corners between the base to the summit. During his climb in the home of drifting, Rovanperä met & challenged Japan’s top racers, leading drift race drivers, supercar teams and his cultural idol – Fujiwara Takumi from the manga Initial D at the top of the mountain. His interest in Japanese culture for Kalle has brought him to Japan first via WRC and in 2023, he took part in two rounds of the Japanese drifting championship, winning his debut race. The project took place on Mount Iwaki in Aomori Prefecture, which has 69 corners from the base to the summit and has never been drifted before. Initial D, the manga that was serialized weekly in Japan from 1995 to 2013, focused on races limited to mountain passes on public roads and it now forms a large part of drifting culture across the world.

Continuing his pursuit of diverse motorsports experience, Kalle Rovanperätook 2024 off in his consistent appearance in WRC to combine a series of drifting competitions, the Porsche Carrera Cup as well as a recent Formula 1 test before going to Japan for the Initial D project. Kalle admits he was greatly influenced by the famous manga throughout his youth as well as further on in his career. After a stage in the 2020 WRCRally Japan, he commented “I was bringing tofu like they do in Initial D. Drifting on a mountain road like this has been a dream of mine for quite a while. And being able to do it here in Japan with these amazing landscapes is amazing. I have liked it a lot,” commented Rovanperä. The release comes at a time when Initial D celebrates its 30th anniversary. The series revolves around Fujiwara Takumi, whose father runs a tofu shop. Before Fujiwara reaches the age of driving, his former rally driver father asks him to help deliver tofu by car, where he discovers his talent and ends up racing. Kalle’s father was also a former rally driver, competing in the WRC from the 1993 to 2006 seasons. Under his father’s expert guidance, Kallemastered drifting by the age of eight. “I like the style of the series and I know that diverse drifting cultures across the globe have been inspired by the series,” shares Kalle. “Planning this whole project with Initial D made it possible to have a solid foundation for the project. I’ve had a lot of fun making this movie and I’m 100% sure it will turn out really cool.” In the release video, the driver of the iconic Toyota Sprinter Trueno AE86 from Initial D has been digitally altered using AI technology to appear as Takumi Fujiwara.

Take a look at the YouTube video that shows off what happens when you let a world-famous WRC driver loose on a Japanese touge course - resulting in some absolutely stunning visuals with a little bit of help from some AI magick: Rally Driver Vs Drift Mountain Challenge | Red Bull Motorsports

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