Henri Ruotsalainen

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Henri Ruotsalainen
Nationality 23px-Flag of Finland.svg-1-.png Finnish
Born (2002-08-27) 27 August 2002 (age 21)
Rovaniemi, Lapland, Finland
Formula Virtual World Championship career
2024 team SRT
2024 car number 98
Entries 2 (2 starts)
Championships 0
Wins 0
Podiums 0
Career points 0
Pole positions 0
Fastest laps 0
First entry 2024 Australian V-Prix
Latest entry 2024 Malaysian V-Prix
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Previous series
2021-2023 Virtual World Racing Series
2020 Virtual Americas Racing Series
2019 Virtual European Racing Series
Championship titles
2023 Virtual World Racing Series
2020 Virtual Americas Racing Series

Henri Biehtár Ruotsalainen (born 27 August 2002) is a virtual racing driver from Finland who currently competes in the 2024 Formula Virtual World Championship for SRT. He was previously a member of the Ingram Fledglings junior academy.

Early and personal life

Ruotsalainen was born and raised in the capital city of the sparse region of Lapland, as he grew up around snow and set his sights on becoming a rally driver like his uncle, but went to pursue single seater racing instead. He began his career in ice karting and progressed to outdoor karting. Ruotsalainen is a four time Lapland Karting Champion and his younger brother Máhtto is a former karter and founder of his own karting team MMRK (Máhtto Mikael Ruotsalainen Karting).

His father Mikael used to race jokkis (low-cost nordic type of rallycross) in the 90s and 2000s, as Henri, his brother Máhtto and sister Ida, would tag along to their father's races and uncle's rally races. His mother, Mariánne is a Sámi, which caused Henri troubles with sponsorship due to his Sámi heritage and the historic discrimination of them.

Ruotsalainen is currently in a relationship with Finnish racing driver, Ami Järvinen, who most recently competed in the 2023 Virtual World Racing Series.

Career

Early career (2019–2023)

Virtual European Racing Series (2019)

After success at karting in the Nordic and Baltic region, Ruotsalainen began his single-seater career in 2019, debuting in the Virtual European Racing Series with the Swedish team Johansson Motorsport, partnering fellow Nordic, Robert Stefánsson of Iceland. The first round in the Pau was consistent and he scored points in the first two rounds, but failed to finish the the final race. In Brands Hatch, he got his first pole and win in the first race, but retired from the remaining races of the second round.

In Valencia, he added another win to his tally in the first race along with another pole. Zandvoort was another round where he collected a podium along with his maiden fastest lap. In the penultimate round in Imola, he scored another pole position in the first race and finished the race in second, after retiring from the second race he bounced back with a ninth place along with his second fastest lap of his VERS campaign.

Ruotsalainen topped off his campaign in the final round in Oschersleben with a pole position and a double win, finishing third in the overall standings with 168 points. His teammate Stefánsson finished in second, and Johansson Motorsport won the teams championship. After he successful season, he became a junior driver for the Irish Formula Virtual team, Cheema - which later became Highwind in 2021.

Virtual Americas Racing Series (2020)

In 2020, the young Finn moved to the Virtual Americas Racing Series with defending Teams' Champion, Estrella Carreras, partnering American Alex Allen.

Although in the first round in Termas de Río Hondo started poorly, after retiring from the first race when starting on pole, he scored his first podium in the series in the second race, and got another points finish in the final race. The change in continents was unable to faze him throughout the rest of the series, a finished every single race in a podium position, except for the first race in the fourth round in Laguna Seca, as he cruised to the title with 279 points.

He drove in the 2020 Virtual 24 Hours with Highwind Endurance in the GT-D class, partnering Ahmed Cheema and Declan Byrne.

Virtual World Racing Series (2021-2023)

2021

After his success in Tier 3, he was promoted to Tier 2 in the Virtual World Racing Series with Norwegian team, Nebula Powerteam, as he partnered fellow rookie Heikki Veskila.

In the first round in Adelaide, which was his first time racing in country, he managed to keep his head above water and brought home valuable points to his team, while his teammate didn't score any points in the first two races of the round, he brought home a podium in the final race. Throughout the season, Ruotsalainen was able to bring home points much more consistently than other rookies of the series, as he got his first win and podium in the fourth round in Brazil in the second race. In the final two rounds in Abu Dhabi and Macau, he scored points in every race of the two rounds as he won the Rookie Championship and finished his first season in seventh with 135 points.

Apart from his campaign in VWRS, he once again drove with Highwind Endurance Racing in the 2021 Virtual 24 Hours in the GT-LM class, alongside Alexander McLaughlin and Daniel Zientek.

2022

For his 2022 campaign in VWRS, he remained with Nebula Powerteam and partnered Heikki Veskila for the second time, in hopes of winning the Drivers' Championship.

After battling with championship leader, Ott Eskola, for the first half of the season, it became clear on who would win the title, with Eskola scoring podiums in eleven out of twelve races and achieving four wins. Ruotsalainen was inconsistent and only won one race, he also finished on the podium four more times amidst the sea of retirements he was faced with in the first half of the season. His second half of the season was better as he got three more wins and four more podiums but he retired from another four races, including one where he started on pole, as he finished the championship in second with 213 points; a long way behind Eskola but well ahead of third placed Cosmo Roberts in the championship.


2023

Ruotsalainen was not promoted to the Highwind Formula Virtual line up for 2023 and was left without a parent team as the Irish team closed its doors at the end of the 2022 season. Eventually, Ruotsalainen joined the Ingram Fledglings, as he announced that he would contest his third and final season of the Virtual World Racing Series, staying with Nebula Powerteam for his 2023 title hopes, as he partnered Heikki Veskila for the third season in a row.

He dominated the championship and finished 197 points ahead of his nearest rival, Chloe King, with four wins, six poles, eleven podiums and three fastest laps.

Formula Virtual (2024–present)

SRT (2024-present)

Racing record

Career Summary

Season Series Team Name Races Wins Poles F/Laps Podiums Points Position
2019 VERS Johansson Motorsport 18 4 4 2 6 168 3rd
2020 VARS Estrella Carreras 18 4 3 6 15 279 1st
2021 VWRS Nebula Powerteam 24 1 1 1 1 135 7th
2022 VWRS Nebula Powerteam 24 4 5 1 8 213 2nd
2023 VWRS Nebula Powerteam 24 4 6 3 11 287 1st
2024 Formula Virtual Bitburger Seifert Racing Team 2 0 0 0 0 0* 21st*

* Season in progress.

Complete VERS results

(results in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year Entrant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Pos. Points
2019 Johansson Motorsport FRA
1
7
FRA
2
4
FRA
3
Ret
GBR
1

1
GBR
2
Ret
GBR
3
Ret
ESP
1

1
ESP
2
7
ESP
3
Ret
NED
1
7
NED
2
Ret
NED
3

3
ITA
1

2
ITA
2
Ret
ITA
3

9
GER
1

1
GER
2
9
GER
3
1
3rd 168

Complete VARS results

(results in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year Entrant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Pos. Points
2020 Estrella Carreras ARG
1

Ret
ARG
2
3
ARG
3
7
URU
1
2
URU
2

1
URU
3

3
BRA
1
1
BRA
2

2
BRA
3

2
USA
1
Ret
USA
2
3
USA
3
2
CAN
1
2
CAN
2

1
CAN
3

2
MEX
1
1
MEX
2
2
MEX
3

2
1st 279

Complete VWRS results

(results in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year Entrant 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 Pos. Points
2021 Nebula Powerteam AUS
1
4
AUS
2
9
AUS
3
5
FRA
1
4
FRA
2
Ret
FRA
3
Ret
GBR
1
17
GBR
2
10
GBR
3
7
BRA
1
4
BRA
2
1
BRA
3
8
USA
1
Ret
USA
2
4
USA
3
12
BEL
1
Ret
BEL
2
Ret
BEL
3
18
UAE
1
7
UAE
2
7
UAE
3
7
MAC
1
4
MAC
2
8
MAC
3
6
7th 135
2022 Nebula Powerteam AUS
1
2
AUS
2

Ret
AUS
3
19
FRA
1
1
FRA
2
Ret
FRA
3

14
GBR
1
4
GBR
2
Ret
GBR
3
4
BRA
1

2
BRA
2
3
BRA
3
12
USA
1

2
USA
2
6
USA
3
Ret
BEL
1
Ret
BEL
2
1
BEL
3
12
UAE
1

Ret
UAE
2
Ret
UAE
3
22
MAC
1

1
MAC
2
1
MAC
3
12
2nd 213
2023 Nebula Powerteam AUS
1

1
AUS
2
Ret
AUS
3

10
FRA
1

2
FRA
2

2
FRA
3

4
GBR
1
1
GBR
2

1
GBR
3
7
BRA
1

3
BRA
2
5
BRA
3
5
USA
1

Ret
USA
2
5
USA
3
Ret
BEL
1
2
BEL
2
2
BEL
3
Ret
UAE
1
3
UAE
2
1
UAE
3
11
MAC
1
7
MAC
2
3
MAC
3
7
1st 287

Complete Formula Virtual results

(results in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year Entrant Chassis Engine 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 WDC Points
2024 Bitburger Seifert Racing Team SRT RS-02-P Porsche MRV-24 AUS
15
MAL
Ret
SIN
JPN
FRA
GBR
GER
NED
BEL
ITA
KWT
CAN
USA
MEX
ARG
BRA
21st* 0*

* Season in progress.