In today’s NWT Peter tells that he has installed active differentials and paddle gearshift in his car – a Volvo 940(!!!). That’s quite amazing!

So, now you think: “Who cares about Zachrisson?”. Peter had a few OK chances a some years ago doing the Swedish Rally and planning an international career, but sadly it never really happened for him because of financial trouble. However, Peter is a hell of a driver and I tell you – watch this video, and then you’ll care. Especially – listen to the sound when he passes in front of the camera:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thanks to Adielssonmotorsport for the video.

Kimi Räikkönen, day 1:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kimi Räikkönen, day 2:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kimi Räikkönen, on-board showing Kimi’s C4WRC after his accident on SS2:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thanks to Ludtati for all the videos.

Räikkönen’s experienced co-driver Kaj Lindström commented after SS9 that the difference to Sordo was 0.9 seconds per kilometer, and at the same time stated that the duo knew they were going slowed than they could – partly because the car setting still wasn’t 100% adapted to Räikkönen’s preferences. Even Kimi himself said at the that he didn’t think it would be very difficult to drive faster, since he knew that the car wasn’t really as he wanted it to be.

Personally, I think Räikkönen got a good and really impressive start. An early off was probably just good for him, since that showed him exactly were the limit was and it also took the overall placement totally off his shoulders. With nothing to fight for in the rally, Kimi could put his focus just on improving his own driving and the car while still having the possibility to compare himself to others, stage by stage.

What I doubt a little bit more is the easiness of going faster. Kimi seems perfectly comfortable by being slower as he knows it’s “the car settings’ fault”. That’s probably perfectly true, but that’s also half the challenge in rallying. You must get a good setup of the car that works from stage to stage. Of course F1 is also much about fine tuning of car settings, but the conditions there are often a little bit more stable. In rallying you’re driving for a longer time and over longer distances, and conditions may vary much or extremely much (Rally Monte Carlo is the perfect example). That’s a part of the challenge and shouldn’t be underestimated.

However, to sum it up I’m really impressed by Kimi’s performance – and it will be a big pleasure to see his developments throughout the season. Go Kimi!

Petter Solberg on the start ramp of Svully Rally Dahbi today. Photo: PSWRT

The Norweigan Svully Rally Dahbi were ran today, and as expected Petter Solberg won the rally with a huge margin to second placed Marcus Grönholm. However, as the rally primarily was an interesting test for the upcoming Rally Sweden – some things were more interesting than the end results:

• Solberg, who sealed a sponsorship agreement with energy drink Mad-Croc earlier this week, were happy with the car and had adjusted settings that made him even more comfortable with the Citroen C4 WRC than last weekend in Sweden.
• Marcus Grönholm won the fight over both Mikkelsen and Sandell – all running in Subaru Impreza group N cars, were Grönholm had the oldest one of them. However, the battle between Mikkelsen and Sandell were quite close despite Mikkelsen being the one most used to his car. That is interesting since Mikkelsen is often considered more of a “raw talent” than Sandell.
• Swedish young shot Pontus Tidemand were impressive managing to keep up the speed with Patrik Sandell and finishing just 1.2 secs behind. There you can talk about a raw talent, and I’d be surprised if we don’t see Pontus in the international arena within a few years!

A strange thing though is that PG Andersson has been named as an entrant in many places, including on http://www.svullyrallydahbi.no, that seems like the rally’s official website. However, PG has told Swedish media that he will be a zero car driver in Swedish Bergslagsrallyt the very same day, that he will not start in Norway and that he has never entered the event (and don’t know why he has been named as an entrant). Strange?!?!

It will be nice to see how the event will be when it’s run. And while we’re waiting for that to happen, I’ll keep on wondering about the owners of the rally. Dahbi makes me think of Abu Dhabi, a name that has been appearing often in the World Rally Championship since a few years. And through a few questions on Google, you can find out that there is a British company registered in London called “Svully Rally Dahbi Limited”. And, if I don’t get it totally wrong (which I may do…) – this British company owns 100% of the stocks in a Norweigan company, led by Even Wiger (m.d. of Rally Norway), with the very same name. It’s not a big thing, but I just wonder why there is a company registered in the UK at all, if the owners would be just Norweigans?! Since I love to speculate, I now guess that some other guys are involved in this as owners, potentially some rich men from Abu Dhabi… However, if so – one question remains. Why can’t they spell Dahbi correct? That seems quite embarassing…

End of speculation. Over and out!

If more movies of Petter in Finnskogsvalsen appear later, they’ll be added to this post – so check back for latest.

NEW! Video with service and some action shots.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thanks to bakkis2 for this video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thanks to cnygge for the video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thanks to ludtati for the video.

Petter Solberg's car in service during Finnskogsvalsen. Photo: PSWRT

Petter Solberg were fastest through the stages in Swedish local competition Finnskogsvalsen today, as expected (I dare to say this despite the last stage is still running, since Petter is through with a normal time and his advantage on the previous stage is 3min 56 seconds). The Norweigan drove his Citroën C4WRC through a little bit more than 80 km’s of competitive stages and seemed to be really happy about the car. Since he recced and made his own notes for the rally, which is not allowed, Petter took part out of the competition and couldn’t win the rally. This, however, is probably nothing that will give Petter problems sleeping tonight – since the rally was first and foremost a test of his new car before Rally Sweden.

At the same time, a number of big names competed in the Norweigan Championship round Mountain Rally in Norway. Anders Gröndal took the victory from second placed Henning Solberg, who were haunted by mechanical problems in his competitive debut with new co-driver Ilka Minor. Mads Östberg with his Swedish co-driver Jonas Andersson led the rally until he hit a snow bank, forcing him out of the competition. Third was Sveinung Bieltvedt, in a Subaru Impreza.

Of course even Henning, going with a Ford Focus WRC05, used the rally primarily as a preparation for Rally Sweden. In this, he was joined by Andreas Mikkelsen and Eyvind Brynhildsen, among others. Brynhildsen scored a fourth place in his Skoda Fabia S2000 while Mikkelsen scored fifth going with his Subaru Impreza – after being penalised with 1min 20s after having to change gearbox in service. Looking at Mikkelsens time if he wouldn’t have had the penalty, he was only a few seconds after Brynhildsen in his S2000, something that maybe indicates that Mikkelsen can be really, really fast when going into the Fiesta S2000 in Sweden!?

Photos from Finnskogsvalsen at Backmans Foto
Results from Finnskogsvalsen 2010 at Resultatdata
Results from Mountain Rally 2010

Magnus Samuelsson, probably the strongest man in a rally car?! Photo: Gustafssons foto

Now it’s confirmed. As I revealed earlier today, Magnus Samuelsson (World’s Strongest Man) will start Rally Sweden 2010. The team aims to start in the World Rally Championship round, but since they still don’t have a full budget a Swedish Championship start may  be the case instead. Magnus is backed by Fredrik Eljas and Olof Eljas, and the later of them will be responsible for giving Magnus the training needed (not physical, huh!?!) to do the start.

The team will run a 280bhp Subaru Impreza group N of latest spec. Magnus Samuelsson himself comments the start as follows:

- This is my dream as a young boy coming true. I’ve tried “folkrace” before but the dream has always been to drive a real rally car. It will be a true adventure and just the thought of being at the start line along with Loeb and the other boys is breathtaking.

Read the article (in Swedish) at RallySweden.com

Obviously the recruitment will be a major boost for Brynhildsen. He has already had an experienced co-driver in Giraudet, but he will now have a fellow countryman, speaking his own language and with heavy experience alongside himself. Also on the marketing side, I think Cato will be good with contacts and his familiar face to media. The only negative aspect I think is the important contacts that Denis Giraudet has, especially since he’s a frenchman – and it’s widely known that the French guys in rallying appreciate to work with their countrymen. This means that Brynhildsen (this is on a very inofficial basis) loses some contacts and goodwill among the French actors in rallying, that Cato maybe cannot weight up.

No matter what, it will be really interesting to see what the Norweigan duo can do. Both are real talents and under the right circumstances I think they really can surprise!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thanks to femtyfem for the video.

- If things work out then I will have a girl in the car with me this year. It will be good for me, and for the sport too – at the moment there are no females competing at this level.

Thinking logically there are not much girls to choose from, as Henning is completely right in that no females are competing at the very highest level in the world. I can only think of two girls that are close enough to Henning to be potential, and they are Veronica Engan and Maria Andersson.

However, Veronica Engan is very less likely than Maria Andersson. Maria just quit her cooperation with Anders Gröndal – and the replacement is noone else than Veronica Engan. It seems unlikely that Veronica would quit after just one rally. But more important, I consider Swede Maria Andersson by far more expecienced. She has been doing a lot of drives in the Production World Rally Championship with Patrik Flodin, one or another WRC drive with Flodin, a season with Gröndal in a WRC car and also one or another WRC drive with George Tracey a few years ago. Besides that, she has partnered Mikkelsen in WRC and Brynhildsen in group N occasionally.

Engan has mostly been doing a group N drives with Brynhildsen, and even though I don’t have her complete record I think that the experience of Andersson makes the choice quite easy. In the end of the day, I can’t imagine that Henning talks of anyone else than Maria Andersson for his WRC challenge 2010 – given that it’s a girl.

The whole competition will be a test where PG tries wether he can keep the speed up with Eyvind Brynhildsen in his Skoda Fabia Super2000. PG says that renting a Super2000 car costs twice as much as doing the home rally in his own Mitsubishi – and if he can, he will save the money for later:

- I’ve got the money it takes, but if I can do two rallies instead of one for them I would prefer that, says PG.

Besides the start in Rally Sweden, which now seems to be totally confirmed, PG is looking at entering the IRC round Rally Italia Sardinia in June. For that rally he would rent a Super2000 car. However, the first thing after Sigdalsrallyt for PG is to do ice notes for Guy Wilks in Rally Monte Carlo later this month. As I revealed yesterday, Wilks is expected to confirm his agreement with Skoda UK today announcing a drive in the 2010 IRC.

Compare the driving styles yourself!

Ken Block, Subaru Impreza, New England Forest Rally 2008, Concord Pond stage, onboard:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Kimi Räikkönen, Abarth Grande Punto, WRC Rally Finland 2009, Leustu stage, onboard:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Brynhildsen will start the year by doing the local events Sigdalsrally and Mountain Rally and then continue with the S-WRC season in Sweden, Mexico, Jordan, Portugal, Germany, France and Wales.

According to Bertil Klarin, m.d. of Rally Sweden, it means that both the Swedish Championship and the WRC event will get a lot of coverage.

Exact details regarding the coverage of Rally Sweden is not know, but the plan is TV broadcasts for four days during the rally, including live coverage of the Karlstad Super Special Stage in the start of the rally and also the finish at the new, spectacular Värmullsåsen stage in Hagfors.

(Source, in Swedish: SR)

If it does, I wouldn’t complain… Nothing is better for rallying than stars with already big names entering the sport. However, I think Kovalainen would have to watch out – none of the F1 guys will have an easy ride in a brand new car and in a so different sport. Probably they would both be happy not to be in the same class – so they at least don’t have to be compared to each other…

Daniel Carlsson - South Swedish Rally 2009

Yesterday and today Daniel Carlsson did his rallying comeback in the Swedish Championship, running a Ford Focus WRC05 to seventh place. PG Andersson won the rally just before regular Swedish frontrunner Mats Jonsson.

The rules in the Swedish Championship say that the fastest driver should go first. In this case it meant Daniel Carlsson and then Mats Jonsson. That’s probably why PG beat Jonsson, and since no new seeding is made before day two, Carlsson had to go the whole rally first on the road – filled with loose gravel. But why this seeding? Is Daniel really the fastest driver?

It was more than two years since Carlsson drove a rally last time, and in the meanwhile PG Andersson have done somewhere around 15 WRC events including some top placings. At the same time, Mats Jonsson have won the Swedish Championship and won almost every rally he started in. And if WRC merits count higher, may I ask someone to remind the Swedish organisers that Mats was the total winner of the Swedish Rally in both 1992 and 1993? Anyway, that shouldn’t be necessary – since the Swedish Rally organisation are also organising the Swedish Championship from this year on…

So… Dear organisers of the South Swedish Rally. Please do some argumentation and present some facts that you based your decision on. I don’t care about the result, but it’s an interesting principle where organisers can really affect the outcome of the rally based on making strange decisions.

One day I’ll take the time to write that story to you guys reading this blog. It isn’t really the time yet, I guess, but it’s certainly coming closer. Until then I’m just really happy about the comeback and the strength Daniel is showing. His mistake was unacceptable, he can’t blame anyone – and he let everyone down. But… He let himself down more than anyone else – and he has been knowing that every day since then. Now he’s back – and just the fact that he makes the comeback is just amazing. Hope the rally makes it even better!

The scene of the comeback will be South Swedish Rally (part of the Swedish Championship) on May 15-16 2009. The car, a Ford Focus WRC05, will be engineered by AP Däckservice Engineering Team in cooperation with the guys at Tätab and Dom Buckley Motorsport.

Read more (in Swedish) at www.danielcarlsson.com
If you don’t speak Swedish and still wonders something, feel free to ask me questions in the comments and I’ll try to answer them!

Maybe PG will do some more starts in the Skoda in Norway – and in the most optimistic situation also in Finland or Poland – but in a whole I fear his career will be on hold for the rest of his year. Hopefully he manages to get something together for next year though, but it will be tough.

Anyway… He’s a hell of a driver and a good entertainer. Go PG!

Patrik won his last outing in the championship, and I think we can expect a win even here if not material issues stop Patrik. The level in Russia is lower than in the championships Patrik is used to, but it’s still a good way of collecting valuable driving experience. However, more interesting to see will be how the PWRC will go on for Patrik (next start is in Portugal), after the failure in Norway. The relationship with Uspenskiy seem to be good, but who could expect anything else until Norway? It’s easy to be friends while winning…

No matter what, I hope Patrik get’s a real – long term – chance in Uspenskiy. Given the right settings, he can be really, really good.

I called PG on Thursday this week, when he was back home in Sweden – and he seemed happy with his result:

- It went really well as long as it lasted, better than we could ever imagine. We intended to be fifth or sixth in the end and hoped to set some medium-good stagetimes, but we didn’t even dream about two stage wins.

So, what was behind this super-performance? Rumours talk about a Czech mechanic making some kind of dream changes on PG’s car in the service before the second loop of the day, but PG play down the importance of any changes made. He was instead worried going into the second loop, since everyone expected the late runners in the field to have a good advantage over Loeb, Hirvonen and the other early starters in the morning loop – something that didn’t happen. This meant, PG feared being beaten even more going into the afternoon:

- We made a few small changes in the setup in the mid-day break. A small change on the timing in the gear-switch and a few clicks on the rear dampers – but that was in fact just because I had to put in two spare wheels. The big difference was that the surface seemed to match the car better in the second loop and I felt more comfortable. I had started to trust Anders (Fredriksson, stand-in co-driver) totally and I attacked more, keeping better lines and getting more flow.

So, what happened making you have to retire? People have talked about you being off prior to the retirement…

- The clutch broke down, but it had nothing to do with an off. I just touched a snow-bank a while before, but that was on the right hand side and the clutch is to the left, those things had nothing to do with each other. The surroundings of the clutch keeping it in place on the gearbox broke -  even though it was made of titanium! It worked for a short while but then the whole clutch broke out of the axis, and it was finished… Actually we still don’t really know why.

Was it a big disappointment?

- For sure it was a disappointment to retire, but fact is that we had already achieved the most important – the stage wins. Even if we would have finished fifth or sixth, the talk would be about the stage wins – not the final result.

Going into the rally PG told me that after this event all his money was spent, and that he had no further plans. The sad reality have been shown too many times now, that good performances doesn’t at all have to pay off in the WRC of today. So, even though I was pessimistic – I couldn’t wait to ask PG if any new offers had came:

- Team bosses aren’t really chasing with paper and pencil to sign their contracts and there’s no point in even listening to those ones wanting millions from me to drive. But of course it’s better as it is now, to have showed my name in the top. Maybe the world will change and get a little bit more attractive to drivers, and then I’m there. The situation is much better than sitting at home being ice cold on the market…

So, there are no plans for the future?

- Actually Kongsrud (Bernhard Kongsrud, owner of the Fabia) wants me to drive in the Numedalsrallyt running the 7th of March in Norway. So as it looks now, I may be there with the Skoda!

I e-mailed Johan Ejeborg on SVT and got the following answer (freely translated):

- We want to broadcast, but can’t afford it. The current situation in the world and the lack of Swedes premanently driving the WRC isn’t very good. We’ll have to return in 2010 or later. It’s a shame, but that’s how it is.

Many credits to Johan for answering this, the current situation is obviously not his fault. I think Swedish rally fans should hope for three things:

• A better financial situation in the world
• Swedes getting into the WRC
• A better and more thrilling WRC – and coverage of it

I guess the situation is quite the same in many countries. As a backup you may use Eurosport (if you don’t have it – check out the online player), WRC.com or WRC’s YouTube channel.

A dream scenario to us swedes would be a close fight with both Patrik (Flodin) and Patrik (Sandell) in the top in the PWRC during the year – and one of them taking the title. Will it happen? It’s not impossible…

Already when I wrote the first post, I pushed for the Swedish Rally to test this thing in the WRC too – and now that seems to become true. In today’s VF (Swedish newspaper) Bertil Klarin, managing director of the Swedish Rally, says that they hope to repeat the same next year. Awesome!

Jimmy Joge, Värmland Runt/Swedish Rally 2009, Photo: Micke Fransson, teambild.se

The system will remain in beta phase during 2009 and get public in 2010 – but only for regional series etc, not the WRC. Based on the problems that seems to be good. We all know how much the starting order can mean in rallies with fresh snow, a lot of loose gravel etc. – and it wouldn’t be fair to decide rallies on a crazy ranking system. Despite that – I think the idea is good. The starting order today is in many parts decided by the organiser, and even in the WRC organisers have different quality and most important – they love their local drivers.

However, all this is based on a good system – which will not be easy to create. Championships are different around the world, and everyone knows that winning one regional championship doesn’t mean you even have a chance in one other. The system must of course take that into account, and it must also not over-credit drivers just because they are driving in the WRC. For example Khalid Al-Quassimi, that hasn’t made any real results, must of course be quite low in the list – lower than some drivers running on local basis.

So basically I like this. But question remains… How the h-ck can you make the system work?

See some nice clips of Räikkönen (made by Kimismely) in his Punto here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

However, there is one thing I really don’t get here. Eyvind hasn’t even put a press release regarding his drive on his own website? He’s got BrynhildsenTV there, but he hasn’t got any updated news on his new deal!? That’s quite… Strange. I thought he along with the other Norweigan guys were those supermanaged, professional young guns knowing exactly how to play their cards to get on top of the World Rally Championship – at least to know that they wont fall on anything other than pure driving skills. You need to do better, Eyvind!

After this little burst, I just wonder one more thing. Is Brynhildsen still working on the rumoured Lancer WRC05 (with ’07 upgrades) deal for the Norweigan Championship along with MML Sports? If he could manage to secure that, he seems to have done his homework quite well anyway (but why not Super2000?), allowing him to drive both group N and WRC during 2009. The Lancer is a good car and he should be able to perform good in the Norweigan Championship. Maybe that’s why he hasn’t had time to update his website…