Preview: Rally Norway.

Wednesday, 14th February 2007

Just four days after crossing the finish line in Sweden, the WRC is back in action in neighbouring Norway this week for the third round of the 2007 FIA World Rally Championship.

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Carlsson, made his debut for the Belgian-based outfit on the Swedish Rally last week, and the Swede is keen to put that experience to good use when battle resumes on Friday, with the second and only other winter event in the WRC. Furthermore the ex-Peugeot man will have a slight advantage over most of the other top drivers, as he took in the ‘dress rehearsal’ in 2006 and was running in second place until three stages prior to the finish, when he went off the road.

“Naturally, the Sweden Rally was a very good preparation since I was able to get used to the new Citroen Xsara WRC as well as to my co-driver Denis Giraudet,” he stated. “The 350 completed special stage kilometres mean that we are perfectly prepared.

“I will ride full attack in Norway in order to hopefully achieve an even better result, even though 27 World Rally Cars mean that the starter field will be very competitive.“

Carlsson’s team-mate, Manfred Stohl is also feeling quite confident and the Austrian believes that the fact the rally is new to the calendar could work in his favour.

“Thanks to my experience I quickly adjust to new conditions,” he reasoned.

“Although on the other hand, most of the Scandinavians will surely know this rally very well too - they will set the tone here. A result like in Sweden would be a nice success for me,” he added.

Subaru WRT:

[Petter Solberg, car #7 and Chris Atkinson, car #8.]

Petter Solberg is expecting the Rally Norway to be very ‘special’, given it is the first time his country has ever hosted a round of the World Rally Championship.

‘Hollywood’ will be one of the crowds favourites and although he won the Norwegian Rally Championship in 1998, he has never driven the Rally Norway stages competitively before. Indeed while he took in the recce last year, when Norway ran its candidate event, other than that he has no experience of the tests. As such he doesn’t think he will have much of a ‘home advantage’.