The event began in July 1951 as the Jyväskylän Suurajot (Jyväskylä Grand Prix), originally conceived as a qualifier for the Monte Carlo Rally when Finnish quotas were insufficient to accommodate all local applicants. The inaugural rally covered 1,700 kilometres from Jyväskylä to Rovaniemi in Lapland and back, won by Arvo Karlsson in an Austin Atlantic on a penalty-points system. The name "Rally of the Thousand Lakes" was introduced in 1954, and the event was included in the European Rally Championship in 1959.
The 1950s also saw the introduction of special stages in the modern sense, with the number of timed sections growing steadily through the decade. By 1955, the event had eleven special stages — more than any other European rally at the time.
Through the 1960s and 1970s, Rally Finland became synonymous with a generation of Finnish drivers who seemed to have an innate understanding of the event's high-speed gravel roads. Rauno Aaltonen, Timo Mäkinen, Simo Lampinen, and Hannu Mikkola dominated successive eras. Mäkinen won three consecutive times from 1965 to 1967, and Mikkola went on to claim a record seven victories. The event was widely acknowledged as Finland's largest sporting occasion by spectator count, with audiences of 350,000 to 500,000 routinely attending across the stages.
Sweden's Stig Blomqvist and later non-Nordic drivers began to break through from the 1970s, but the dominance of Finnish and Swedish drivers remained the norm well into the 1980s.
The 1000 Lakes Rally was included in the inaugural 1973 World Rally Championship season. Timo Mäkinen became the first driver to win the event four times and the first Finn to claim a WRC round. Tragically, the 1974 edition saw the WRC's first fatal competitor accident, when co-driver Seppo Jämsä died following a crash on the Ouninpohja stage.
Through the Group B era of the mid-1980s, Peugeot and Lancia dominated, with Timo Salonen winning in both 1985 and 1986. The 1985 event was also the occasion on which Salonen clinched the drivers' world championship with three rounds remaining. Non-Nordic winners remained extremely rare: Carlos Sainz became the first competitor from outside Finland and Sweden to win in 1990, followed by Didier Auriol in 1992.
In 1998, Tommi Mäkinen set a record with his fifth consecutive Rally Finland win on his way to a third successive world title. Marcus Grönholm subsequently became the event's dominant figure in the 2000s, ultimately becoming the first driver to win the same WRC event seven times, a record he set in 2007.
The most famous competitive section in Rally Finland's history is the Ouninpohja stage. Known for its high-speed jumps and sweeping corners, it is among the most celebrated special stages in all of rallying. In 2003, Markko Märtin set the record for the longest jump at any WRC round, travelling 57 metres through the air at 171 kilometres per hour. The stage was split or removed from the route at various points due to average speed concerns but has remained central to the event's identity.
Rally Finland holds eight of the nine highest average speeds ever recorded in a WRC event. In 2005, Marcus Grönholm set the still-standing record for the highest average speed in a world rally: 122.86 kilometres per hour. The event has been voted WRC Rally of the Year by the manufacturer teams in 1998, 2002, 2003, and 2004. Along with the Wales Rally GB, it is one of only two events to have appeared in all but one WRC season since the championship began in 1973.
Rally Finland stands as one of the defining events in WRC history — a proving ground that made or broke reputations, produced a lineage of "Flying Finn" heroes, and pushed automotive engineering to its absolute limits. Its combination of speed, spectacle, and tradition makes it one of the most beloved fixtures in the world championship, and the Jyväskylä region's association with rally competition stretches back more than seventy years.