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.
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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