A new name in Sweden. Niklas Hägg won the fourth round of the Swedish national championship, the Bilmetro Rally at Gävle in a Skoda Fabia S2000.
Niklas Hagg won the fourth round of the Swedish Rally Championship. (Photo: Annemo Friberg)He beat the Mitsubishi special of Martin Berglund by 0.6 seconds.
There were five different leaders in this eight-stage event, including Emil Berqvist who finished seventh in a two-wheel drive VW Golf.
Meanwhile, Yoann Bonato won the French championship Limousin Rallye at Limoges in a Citroen DS3 R5, beating the Skoda Fabia R5 of Fabian Lo Fiego and the Peugeot 208 T16 of Charles Martin.
Top World Rally Car was the Citroen DS3 WRC of Jean-Charles Beaubelique.
In Spain Cristian Garcia won the Ourense Rally in a Ford Fiesta R5 ahead of Ivan Ares in a Hyundai i20 R5.
In Finland the OK AutoRalli saw a Skoda Fabia 1-2-3 with 16-year old Kalle Rovanpera beating Juuso Nordgren and Marko Manty.
R5s were beaten in the FIA European Trophy Ina Delta Rally in Croatia when Hideg Krisztián Hideg’s Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX R4 beat the Fiestas of Bisaha Ondřej Bisaha and Peter Scharmach.
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Next weekend’s Cyprus Rally (16-18 June) marks the halfway point in the eight-round European Rally Championship, and which is the most important double regional championship fixture in the FIA’s rally calendar.
After unhappy disputes in previous years how to run one rally when competitors have to comply with two different, often conflicting, sets of rules, this year the ERC and the Middle East Rally Championship run to integrated rules.
This year the event starts in Nicosia, using stages to the south of Nicosia at Agia Napa. Included again this year is the downtown special stage, now done twice, which incorporates the streets of both the Cyprus and the Turkish parts of Nicosia.
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