About Marcus Grönholm
Marcus Ulf Johan "Bosse" Grönholm is a Finnish former rally and rallycross driver, being part of a family of the Swedish-speaking population of Finland lineage. His son, Niclas Grönholm, is an upcoming FIA World Rallycross Championship driver. Grönholm's nicknames are either "Bosse" or "Magic Marcus". Grönholm is one of the most successful WRC drivers of all time, ranking third in rally wins (30), and winning two championships, in 2000 and 2002. After Peugeot withdrew from the World Rally Championship, Grönholm moved to Ford for the 2006 season and placed second in the drivers' world championship, losing out to Sébastien Loeb by one point. The next year he again placed second, four points behind Loeb. He and his co-driver Timo Rautiainen retired from rallying after the 2007 season but returned to the championship in 2009 driving a private Subaru for a short period of time, and in the 2019 World Rally Championship where he competed in a Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT-maintained Toyota Yaris under the GRX Team banner. After suffering an engine failure on the season-opening round in Monte Carlo in 2000, Grönholm took his first championship win on the Swedish Rally the following month, with the 206 WRC. In Finland everything clicked despite a gearbox issue and Grönholm finally got a win he was allowed to keep, but he went from hero to zero by crashing on the first stage in Germany. After an irksome and unsuccessful championship defense in 2001 during which assorted mechanical problems kept him down to fourth overall in the points table, he easily won his second title in 2002. An eventful second in New Zealand was followed by heartbreak in Cyprus: Here, Grönholm thought he had taken the 307's first win but after the event both he and teammate Harri Rovanperä (who finished fifth) were disqualified for illegal water pumps.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.