Markku Alén

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Markku Alén (born February 15, 1951 in Helsinki) is a race car driver born in Finland.

He is one of the most successful rally drivers in the history of rallying. Markku started his rallying career in 1969 driving a Renault 8 Gordini. Since then he went on to drive with Volvo, Fiat, Lancia, Subaru, Toyota and Ford. He managed 19 consecutive WRC wins in his career.

Before the World Rally Championship for Drivers was established in 1979, Alén won the FIA Cup for Drivers in 1977, driving mainly for the Fiat works team.

Following a move to the Lancia factory team which brought continued success, Alén narrowly lost the 1986 World Rally Championship to rival driver Juha Kankkunen. Late in the season, Alén had been victorious on the San Remo rally only after Kankkunen's Peugeot team was excluded by the organizers on a controversial technicality. Peugeot subsequently appealed the exclusion to the FISA, which eventually annulled the results of the rally, stripping Alén of the World Championship title which he had held for just 11 days.

He drove two races of the International Touring Car Championship of 1995 for Alfa Romeo, driving the same number of races in DTM earlier that year. He also drove in Trophy Andros in 1996 and 1997.

To celebrate his 50th birthday in 2001, he entered that year's Neste Rally Finland, finishing in a respectable 16th place overall with a Ford Focus WRC.

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