Mikkelsen missing from Swedish Rally entry list

The organisers of the Swedish Rally have released the names of the 44 entries for the second round of the 2017 World Rally Championship.  

Andreas Mikkelsen is missing from the 2017 Swedish Rally entry list.Citroen again have two 2017 cars, this time with Craig Breen alongside Kris Meeke, and a non-championship 2016 specification car for Stephane Lefebvre.   

Hyundai and Toyota have again entered the same crews (Hayden Paddon, Thierry Neuville and Dani Sordo for Hyundai, and Jari-Matti Latvala and Juho Hanninen for Toyota), while M-Sport will have four 2017 cars for Sebastien Ogier, Ott Tanak, Elfyn Evans and Mads Ostberg, with the first three being nominated for championship points.  

More than half the entry is for R5 cars, with 13 entered in WRC2, no entries in WRC3 and two cars in WRC Trophy, for Gorban’s Eurolamp team Mini and Lorenzo Bertelli’s Ford.  

This year it is not necessary for the Manufacturer team entries each to run with the same tyre supplier.  

DMack have already announced that Evans’ entry at Monte Carlo will be run with DMack tyres rather than Michelin.  Although it is hoped that Evans will run a full WRC season with DMack, there has been no confirmation about further occasions.  

Big shock is that Andreas Mikkelsen (third in the 2016 championship and Rally Australia winner) is missing from the list.
 
- Martin Holmes

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