On the bright side of the rally, Petter Solberg holds the lead after the first day with around 15 seconds over Citroen Junior driver Sebastien Ogier. Will we see Petter winning a rally for the first time in many years? That would be amazing!

Here is Kimi’s off:

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Thanks to motorstvfrance for the video.

The junction where a LOT of people went off (a bit into the movie):

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Hirvonen and Loeb challenging on Colin’s Crest (Vargåsen):

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Kimi Räikkönen crashing on Sågen:

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Stunning onboard with Mikko Hirvonen on Vargåsen:

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First day video:

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Second day video:

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Third day video:

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Thanks to eslake123, MadCowYuuko, TwitChii, Sdimm, nedbis and milkowsky for the videos.

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Petter Solberg's car during service while testing in Sweden on Sunday. Photo: PSWRT

Petter Solberg, who has previously done both tests and a few test rallys (Svully Rally Dahbi in Norway and Finnskogsvalsen in Sweden) during the recent weeks, tested his Citroën C4WRC in Sweden once again yesterday. In a short post on his blog Petter said that driving the car was good fun and that it’s really fast. Today Petter is probably checking in for the rally and tomorrow starts the recce that will take place during Tuesday and Wednesday.

Source: VF

Kimi Räikkönen, day 1:

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Kimi Räikkönen, day 2:

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

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Thanks to Ludtati for all the videos.

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!

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Thanks to ludtati for the video.

Driving on SS2:

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The interview:

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Quotes from Petter’s interview:

• “This is most a way to test on many stages and get back to the feeling again”
• “I have one goal this year, and that is to beat Sebastien Loeb. I’m a privateer now and that’s tough, many people probably regard it impossible, but I will try my best and I have a 2009 spec car that should be at least almost the same as the one Loeb will drive. I will do my workouts,eat good and try to get more testing than Sebastien. He will do 15 test days this year, so I have planned 26.”
• Asked on the differences between Petter’s car and the 2010 Citroen works car, Petter says: “Sebastiens gearbox is 4 kg lighter than mine. I could get it, but it would cost me 8M NOK (ca €912.000) more, so I thought I’ll have to lose 4 kg’s myself instead.”
• Talking on when Petter left Subaru, he says: “I had a good time with Subaru and we had many good years, but it came a time without that right philosophy, and then you’ll have to do something. They’ll probably come back some time – but when you don’t fight to win anymore you can’t do anything else [than leaving]. Now it’s Citroen and times have changed, but that’s life. It changes and you can just look forward.”
• “The Citroen and the Ford is very similar cars, but I have a feeling the Citroen is better. Especially since this year’s WRC has many asphalt rallies, where the Citroen is clearly better.”
• “I have one team in Torsby and one in France. The French team is currently preparing my other car for Mexico, and it will be loaded on the containers on Monday. At the same time, Pernilla is working on clothes and other things. Everyone in this team is working all around the day now, very hard.”
• “This is the life of my family and also my wife Pernilla’s family. We all want to win and we’ll try to do it…”

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

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Thanks to Hedlund80 for the videos.

Petter Solberg testing outside Torsby in Sweden today. Photo: PSWRT

Petter Solberg tested his Citroën C4WRC today outside Torsby – and had really fun according to himself. From the reports I’ve heard, Petter is satisfied with the car, but of course there are things left to tweak. Good then that Petter has hired Francois “Fx” Demaison full time this year as an engineer, so they can sort things out…

Tomorrow Petter will start the local rally Finnskogsvalsen as an extended test – around 90 km’s of competitive stages on old Rally Sweden roads. It will be really interesting to hear Petters impressions after that test!

Here is an extract from the entry list in the rally:

Click here for the full entry list for Finnskogsvalsen

Kimi Räikkönen, Citroen C4WRC, Photo: Citroen

Kimi Räikkönen did his first Citroen C4 WRC tests yesterday in Citroens test track outside their factory in Satory, France. The test covered around 50km’s and was successful. Afterwards, Räikkönen talked to Autosport and told that he enjoyed meeting the team. He also stated he wants to get back in the car soon:

- It was good to try out a few different things; I was very interested to see how the car reacted when you changed some of the settings. Now I’m really keen to get back behind the wheel of the C4 again, Räikkönen said.

The good thing for Räikkönen then is that his competitive debut, as known, will be already in the Arctic Rally in Finland later this month – as a preparation for Rally Sweden. I also guess that more tests are planned before that rally.

Kimi Räikkönen in the Citroen C4 WRC, Photo: Citroen