He finished runner-up in the Finnish Rally Championship and matched the points total of the winner Simo Lampinen.

Kinnunen also participated in the Finnish F3 Championship with an outdated Brabham in 1967, and a Titan which he drove to several victories in 1968, including one at Ahvenisto Race Circuit in which he managed to beat Swedish future Formula One star Ronnie Peterson.

[3] In 1969, Kinnunen made a complete switch to circuit racing and won the Nordic Challenge Cup, predecessor of the popular Interserie, with two wins and a second place at Keimola Motor Stadium after a close battle with Jochen Rindt.

He was then invited to test a Porsche 917 at Österreichring and made such an impression that he was hired to partner Pedro Rodriguez in the World Sportscar Championship.

He won the championship in his debut year, despite withdrawing from the race at Norisring after seeing his former team-mate Rodriguez crash into the barriers and lose his life.

With the help of Jochen Rindt he was negotiating for a race seat with Team Lotus, which was dominating the series at the time and eventually won the World Constructors' Championship that season.

After finally finding sponsorship, Kinnunen entered the series with a new team and a Cosworth DFV V8 3.0 litre engine.

[citation needed] The AAW team knew that the car would not last the whole race, so they fueled it for only ten laps in order to make a quick press run.

This compensated for the TS16's heavy weight, and Kinnunen managed to overtake five cars in eight laps before a spark plug problem forced him to retire.

They were not allowed to take part in the Dutch Grand Prix, and failed to qualify for the races in France, Great Britain, Italy or Austria.

Kinnunen was asked to drive in the film Le Mans personally by actor and racing enthusiast Steve McQueen, who himself drove for Porsche in North America.