Finland (FIN)

1993: Started rallying with Opel Ascona

Entries of WRC Events

He made a scene in Finland in his first ever rally, to being the fastest driver of all the event, winning drivers like Harri Rovanperä and Tapio Laukkanen. He continued to impress by taking seven junior category wins over the next two years before making his WRC debut in his native Finland in 1996. He retired from F2 lead in Rally Finland, but then finished 16th overall in RAC. 

Gardemeister is a protege of Juha Kankkunen, Tommi Mäkinen and their mentor Timo Jouhki, who helped him to get support. He took to the world stage for the second time in 1997 on his home event, the Rally Finland. He finished third in the 2-litre class and went on to become Finnish F2 Champion driving a Nissan Sunny GTI. Italian outings with a Astra Team Lancia yielded several podium places and victories.

In 1998 outings with Nissan, Lancia and Ford before made a contract  to drive the rest of the season in SEAT´s works team. His good results convinced Nissan team chief Dave Whittock and Gardemeister made a full season contract with Nissan for 1999. The team made full surprising decision to finish it´s rallying activity and Gardemeister had no place to drive. His good connections to the SEAT team helped him to get in drive the British Rally Championship. Such was the young Finn’s performance that SEAT decided to put him in a Cordoba WRC for certain World Rally events as a try-out. Gardemeister’s performance has since passed into history. On his first ever world rally championship event in a World Rally Car, he scored a sensational 3rd place in Rally New Zealand 1999 with SEAT Cordoba WRC.

For the season 2000 he signed a two-year agreement with SEAT to drive the whole WRC season. In Monte Carlo he placed fourth but after that everything went wrong with the team. The Spanish manufacturer decided to stop its involvement in the World Rally Championship and Gardemeister was left without a full-time drive for 2001.

He had been linked to an extensive programme with Ford for 2001, but the team's last minute decision to sign Francois Delecour left him facing a last-gasp search for a competitive car to continue his career. All was agreed with Toni and Ford with a hand shake, at least 10 events. He decided to switch to a privately-run Grifone-Peugeot. Both in Monte Carlo and Sweden he scored top five results and showed that he had lost none of the talent for which he has become known. Then he competed in a third factory-supported Mitsubishi in both the rallies of Finland and New Zealand. The outings were big disappointing, but he secured the works drive for the season 2002. Skoda signed him to drive on all fourteen rounds of the FIA World Rally Championship. He scored top six results both in Argentina and in Australia and was clearly the fastest driver of the Skoda team. 

in 2003 he continued with Skoda and the season started well. With the big Octavia he was able to take points in Sweden, Turkey, New Zealand and Argentina. Much was excepted, when the smaller Fabia was introcuded in Germany. The car was not ready at all and the rest of the season was a big disappointment. In 2004 Gardemeister continued with Skoda, but the team was concentrating on development of the present model and contested only a limited programme of European WRC rounds starting from Greece. He took the points in Finland and Germany and it was time to change the team.

Gardemeister has had something a stop-start career in the WRC and despite setbacks has shown great promises. At only 24, he notched up his maiden WRC podium, but at 25 had completed a full season and lost his driver seat. He is at the same age as Petter Solberg, Sebastien Loeb and Markko Martin, but has been on the top much longer than current WRC stars.