Posts Tagged ‘daniel carlsson’
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
Peter Zachrisson, from Säffle (the same small town where Daniel Carlsson, Tina Thörner, L-E Torph, Mats Karlsson and a lot of other Swedish rally people come from), is doing his first start in this years Swedish Championship this weekend. I don’t often to write about the Swedish Championship – but it happens and Peter really is a fresh wind so…
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:
Thanks to Adielssonmotorsport for the video.
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Tags: daniel carlsson, lars-erik torph, mats karlsson, peter zachrisson, rally-sm, swedish championship, tina thörner, volvo 940
Posted in National Rallying, Swedish Rallying, Video | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Daniel Carlsson with co-driver Bosse Holmstrand enjoying perfect snow conditions of solid ice covered with a thin layer of loose snow in Uddeholm Swedish Rally 2006. Photo: Rasmus Bjerén
With more than two weeks left before the rally kicks off it’s too early to judge how the weather situation for Rally Sweden will be, but considering the discussions that has always been before the rally in recent years, I can’t avoid thinking about how promising it looks. It has been cold weather since early December in the rally region (and in almost whole Sweden) and currently reports are talking about ca 40 cm’s of snow in the area. That may of course vary locally, but there is snow – no doubt. And then, looking at the forecast for the next 10 days, it shows more snow the next few days and cold weather for the whole period.
The only thing that could improve is the icyness. The snow came immeditely as the temperature had gone sub-zero – and since the snow isolates the ground, that means that the ground isn’t frozen as much as it would preferably be. Without a layer of ice and/or frozen ground, the car will fast blow away the snow and reach the ground that gets muddy and teared up. If it came a short, very short, melting period followed by cold weather again – the snow surface on the roads would get packed, partially melted and then freezed back to ice. That, with a thin or thick layer of fresh snow on top of it would make up the perfect conditions for a winter rally with snow spraying behind the cars, studs staying in the tires and a great winter atmosphere.
However, I think the current conditions are certainly good enough – and better than most times – for a fantastic winter rally. So, let’s not worry and just hope the fantastic conditions stay for the next few weeks, and everything will be just amazing! I have a feeling that Rally Sweden 2010 will be remembered as the best for quite a few years…!
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Tags: 2010, bo holmstrand, bosse holmstrand, conditions, daniel carlsson, forecast, ice, isolate, mitsubishi lancer wrc, rally sweden, snow, studs, sub zero, weather, winter
Posted in Swedish Rallying, WRC | 3 Comments »
Saturday, May 16th, 2009
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.
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Tags: daniel carlsson, mats jonsson, pg andersson, seeding, south swedish rally, swedish championship
Posted in General rallying, National Rallying, Swedish Rallying | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 28th, 2009
Spent the night yesterday writing the lovely press release about Daniel Carlsson coming back to rallying. I wont tell you the whole story now, but there is so much regarding his mistake and the behaviour by different actors after it that haven’t been discussed in media and that are not really nice stories (at least to those ones involved) if they come out into the light.
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!
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Tags: ap däckservice engineering team, comeback, daniel carlsson, dom buckley motorsport, ford focus wrc, ford focus wrc05, rally, south swedish rally, swedish championship, tätab
Posted in National Rallying, Silly season, Swedish Rallying, WRC | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
EDIT: As most of you have probabaly understood by now, this was only a 1st of April Joke. Happy fools day, all!
A FIA representative in Algarve that I’ve been in contact with have confirmed the rumours that has circulated down in Portugal during the day: the WRC season 2009 will end already in May after the Ralli d’Italia-Sardegna – and then leave room for a new winter-based season starting in September this year. The main class during that new season will be the Super2000 class, with the same technical specifications as the Super2000 class used in the IRC.
The decision was made this morning at a meeting in Algarve with the most important FIA delegates, mobilised by Max Mosley – president of the organisation. The formal decision is scheduled to be taken this evening during a meeting starting at 7PM Portugese time, allowing for the FIA to inform media, team, organisers and fans already tomorrow – before the Rally of Portugal get’s started.
Swedish rally driver Daniel Carlsson is chocked but happy about the decision:
- I had no clue this was coming, but we saw already in the last World Council meeting that Max [Mosley] wanted to speed up the conversion to Super2000. Now, he has certainly done that and it will of course cause some problems to those drivers and teams that have commited to the full season – but at the same time I don’t see why we should wait for a change that we know are to come. Super2000 is the best class to attract manufacturers, so I think it makes sense to do it immediately. To me it feels like FIA has finally got their pieces together and made a good decision for the development of WRC.
I’ll get back with more information on this subject as soon as possible.
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Tags: daniel carlsson, fia, IRC, main class, max mosley, super2000, winter season, world council, WRC
Posted in Rally testing, WRC | 4 Comments »
Friday, February 13th, 2009
ISC and WRC.com seems to have worked hard following Eurosports heroic TV-coverage from the Rally Monte Carlo, with more than six hours of live stages sent. Now, WRC.com have announced 3 hrs of live coverage from Norway, but that’s not 100% true… Fact is that the coverage is sent immediately after the stages is complete – which to me isn’t at all live. The good thing with live coverage is to see what happens – as it happens – and get to know about good performances, problems, crashes and the conditions on the screen, not in a results list. All this is destroyed by “delayed live coverage”.
I’m not sure why they are delaying their coverage, but of course it’s hard to produce live TV. I was responsible for live coverage on the Swedish Rally website in 2007, and there was a lot of problems. However, it is possible. It can be done the old-fashioned way with satellites or an aircraft relaying images from the stages – or it may be done in more modern ways, as I proved with Nordisk Mobiltelefon and Daniel Carlsson in last years Swedish rally (see previous post). That solution was based on mobile technology and data transfer using a mobile network with really good coverage. It worked perfectly well!
However, a big part of ISCs problems is their old-school solution taking images from in-car cameras. At least when I worked at the Swedish Rally in 2007, ISC used camcorders in the cars and retrieved DV-tapes from the recorders during service brakes. Of course that’s hard to broadcast live. I guess they’re looking at better options after seeing Eurosport’s coverage from Monte. It’s quite obvious with the technology of today that it’s perfectly possible to do live coverage – you just have to want to work hard and invest. And that’s where the problems seems to have been with ISC… Let’s hope they shape up now.
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Tags: broadcast, camcorder, camera, daniel carlsson, eurosport, incar, isc, live, monte carlo, onboard, rally norway, tv, WRC
Posted in General, Rally promotion and media coverage, Swedish Rallying, WRC | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, January 14th, 2009
Rumours in Norweigan media says that Petter yesterday bought a Citroen Xsara WRC from France along with two engines and two gearboxes. There are strong indications that this is the car Petter will use in Norway… However, nothing is confirmed regarding this.
Another option for Petter is to use the car only for testing – but that doesn’t seem very likely considering the extra engines and gearboxes he bought. Anyway, let’s assume that Petter will use the car competing in the WRC – at least in Norway.
So, what’s my opinion then? I think his results will very much depend on what gear he has managed to get from Citroen. A Xsara WRC must not be the same as a Xsara WRC – the quality may (as on any other WRC car) vary a lot depending on what parts the car is equipped with.
My own experience of that comes from Daniel Carlsson’s time with Kronos Racing in the Xsara WRC in 2007. After seeing Sebastien Loeb, we all know what a right-fitted Xsara WRC can deliver. For Carlsson in Kronos 2007, exactly the same specification as Sebastien Loeb’s 2006 World Champion car was promised from Citroen/Kronos. However, the car that was delivered was equipped with some parts that weren’t -06 and not even -05 spec. It took a long time before anything was updated, and the car was never even close to the spec of Loeb in 2006. From what I’ve heard, even Manfred Stohl was furious regarding the Xsara WRC delivered from Mr Van Dalen and Guy Frequelin.
So, the Xsara WRC may be a good car – but let’s hope Citroen doesn’t try to trick Petter Solberg. They have their own works team and also their Junior Team to take care of – so I guess Petter Solberg’s Xsara will not have the highest priority – even though he’s a star. Best for himself would probably be if he had his totally own team fitting the car with the best parts available on the market. Let’s hope that’s how it will be – otherwise Petter’s (potential) Xsara WRC experience will be a disappointment.
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Tags: 2009, citroen xsara wrc, daniel carlsson, kronos racing, petter solberg, rally norway
Posted in Silly season, WRC | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009
With just two M1 factory teams in the WRC, rally car rental’s and privateer teams are on a high. A strange thing though is that the Peugeot 307WRC is not much used. Last year, Daniel Carlsson was set to use the car in the Swedish Championship part of the Uddeholm Swedish Rally. Unluckily, the rally was cancelled – but Carlsson still drove a test of the car and a media event, and I was there both of the times.
I’m not a rally driver, an engineer or a car technician, but what I saw was pretty impressive – at least to me. The car looked very steady and strong, and Carlsson told me exactly the same. He saw potential on getting top stage times with the car even though it’s quite old (the 307WRC was launched in Monte 2004). Bozian has made a strong job on keeping the car up-to-date and they seem to deliver good value for drivers that wants to fight on top level, or almost there.
So, why is the car not more used? People are renting Fabia WRC’s like never before, they are using all kinds of old Focuses, etc etc. The 307 is used a bit in the french championship, but could be used much more. I know that Henning Solberg had long discussions with Bozian before going to Ford for 2009, and I think that even Petter have been in contact with them, but so far there seem to be no result of that.
So, why? Is it too expensive? Or are people scared of the bad performance from the 307WRC when it was used in the WRC? I think much the second, and that’s too bad, since much has happened to the car since then. However, if I were a rally driver I would have called the Bozian guys today. I have a feeling it’s good value-for-money.
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Tags: 307wrc, bozian, daniel carlsson, henning solberg, petter solberg, peugeot 307 wrc, swedish championship
Posted in WRC | No Comments »
Friday, January 2nd, 2009
So, now it’s official. After a few years into rallying first as a supporter, then working with Daniel Carlsson and for 8 months during 2006-2007 also working with the Swedish Rally I’m finally gonna be “my own”. This blog will cover rallying in all forms, but mostly concentrated to the World Rally Championship (WRC) and the Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC). Also, one post here and there will probably cover the Swedish Rally Championship.
I will write news, rumours, gossip and my own opinions about all kinds of things related to rallying. Just keep in mind it’s my own opinions, my own guesses, etc. etc. and I never use my blog as a source of “confirmed” information.
Soon I’ll get back with my first “real” post with my thinkings on the future of rallying / WRC after the drawback of Subaru and Suzuki, the financial crisis, etc.
Until then, happy rallying!
Regards
Rasmus Bjerén
official rally blogger 
PS. Don’t hesitate to contact me regarding just anything, you can find the contact info in the “about” page. DS.
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Tags: blog, coverage, daniel carlsson, swedish rally
Posted in General | No Comments »
