Of the rest, Kristian Sohlberg should go well too, back in a Group N car, after doing selected events with an Atoyle Kazaz-run
Subaru Impreza WRC in 2006.
Andreas Aigner also switches to a Group N car, having driven a Red Bull-backed Skoda Fabia WRC last season. Aigner took in the Rallye Monte Carlo recently as a giant test with his BRR-run Mitsubishi Evo.
Oscar Svedlund and Jimmy Joge are the Production ‘guest’ entries’, the latter set to give the Peugeot 207 Super 2000 car its world debut.
Other significant entries:
Over 60 crews are due to start the Swedish Rally, with 22 in WRC cars. In addition to the manufacturer drivers’, 10 others will also take part in WRC cars, including Jan Kopecky, the only driver entered in a Skoda Fabia WRC, while
Toni Gardemeister and Xavier Pons will both compete in privately entered Mitsubishi Lancer WRC cars, run by MMSP.
Gigi Galli will also begin his eight event season in Sweden. Galli will use a Pirelli-shod Aimont Racing-run
Citroen Xsara WRC, while Thomas Schie and Mats Jonsson will both use Ford Focus’ and Mads Ostberg and Patrik Flodin opt for Impreza’s.
Route:
Organisers have made few changes to the traditional route with all three legs clustered around the single service park at Hagfors, 85km north of the rally base in Karlstad. Many tests are identical to 2006 while others show partial changes. The only new stage is a super special at Karlstad's trotting track which opens the action on Thursday evening and brings it to a close on Sunday afternoon. However, competitors will return to the city every evening for overnight parc fermé rather than stay in Hagfors. Drivers tackle 20 speed tests covering 342.09km of competition in a route of 1732.73km.
Hot tip:
Round one once again showed that
Sebastien Loeb and Marcus Gronholm will be the two drivers’ to beat again this season - no surprise there. Both stand a good chance of winning in Sweden, although Gronholm possibly has the edge, given that historically this event is usually won by a Nordic driver. Also this will be the first event with the new Citroen C4 on snow and while that wasn’t a problem on asphalt, Seb may be in for a tougher time on the ‘white stuff’.
Last year:
Marcus Gronholm won the Swedish Rally in 2006, 30 seconds or so up on Sebastien Loeb at the finish. Daniel Carlsson took the final podium position, fractionally ahead of
Gigi Galli, who was fourth. Thomas Radstrom and Kosti Katajamaki completed the top five.
