Entries closed at three o´clock Monday afternoon for the 2011 WRC season opener, Rally Sweden. Nearly 130 cars of twenty nationalities were entered when the last accepted one arrived via e-mail. One of the last entries came from Finn Kimi Räikönen.
Citroën Total Rally Team entered their two French drivers, Sébastien Loeb and Sebastien Ogier, in the new Citroën DS3 WRC and Ford World Rally Team have entered the two fast Finns, Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala, together with Khalid Al Qassimi from the United Arab Emirates in the new Ford Fiesta RS WRC.
A number of new WRC-teams are added to the works teams from Citroën and Ford. In the new ICE 1 Racing WRC team you will find Kimi Räikönnen driving a Citroën DS3 and Petter Solberg WRC Team in a DS3 WRC Citroën number four.
American Ken Block has been entered by Monster World Rally Team in a Ford Fiesta RS WRC and the Dutchman Dennis Kuipers by Ferm Powertools World Rally Team in an identical car.
M-Sport Ford World Rally Team is the two car Ford team entering Norwegian Henning Solberg and Englishman Matthew Wilson, also in the new Fiesta based WRC car. Another Norwegian in a Stobart M-Sport Ford Rally Team is Mads Østberg.
Among the PWRC entrants you will find Alexander Villanueva from Spain, Jukka Ketomäki from Finland, in Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X and Martin Semerad from Check Republik, in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX. The fast Nordic drivers, Swede Patrik Flodin and Norwegian Anders Grøndal are driving Subaru Imprezas. Patrik Flodin was last year´s PWRC winner and he must accept being the favorite in PWRC even this year.
The new GT class introduced this season, makes it possible to start with the first Porsche since many years in the World Rally Championship series. Richard Tuthill from Banbury, GB, was the first one to accept the challenge on the icy Swedish roads.
source: www.rallysweden.com
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