Breaths were held for Toyota on the final day in Sweden. In fact, Rally Sweden has a long story of first wins second time out.
Hannu Mikkola winning the Rally Sweden in 1981 in an Audi Quattro. (Photo: Holmes)It had happened to Audi in 1981, Citroen DS3 in 2011 and Volkswagen in 2013.
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The national British Cambrian Rally in North Wales was halted after one stage when weather conditions made it impossible for officials and safety crews to reach their posts because of snow.
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At the pre-event Swedish Rally press conference, Teemu Suninen confirmed that he is to drive a World Rally Car this year in Poland and Finland, while Emil Berkqvist stated that he does not have a full programme in WRC2, but expects also to compete in Corsica, Portugal and Germany.
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Absent but not forgotten. VW honoured their valuable promotional agreement to support Rally Sweden.
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With the Swedish Rally Stewards located 100km away at Karlstad, difficulties of communication for disgraced rally drivers based at Torsby were eased by the use of video links.
The sole WRC3 driver, Louise Cook, learned of her Euro 1000 penalty for failure to activate the OK button on their onboard electronic emergency console when they went off the road.
Non championship drivers were given fine-free reprimand penalties for the same offence.
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16 year old Finnish driver Kalle Rovanpera won the Sarma Rally, his second successive Latvian Championship rally win, beating fellow Skoda Fabia R5 driver, the Russian Nikolai Gryazin.
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Lost of motivation after suffering the loss of his rear wing, sixth placed Mads Ostberg diverted his attention to the available publicity of the Colin’s Crest award.
On his second attempt through the Vargasen stage he made fourth best time, but failed to better his fellow Norwegian Eyvind Brynilden’s all time record of 45 metres, by one metre.
"I missed the best line through the corner before and lost some speed! Of course I wanted the record. I was thinking about the jump all the way through the stage. (After our delay earlier) this was the most important thing in the world!”
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The supporting Swedish Historic Rally was won by veteran Mats Jonsson at the wheel of a Mazda 323 4WD, a minute and a half in front of the rear drive Ford Escort RS1800 of Patrick Sandell.
- Martin Holmes
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