Posts Tagged ‘henning solberg’
Sunday, February 14th, 2010
I happened to be on SS21 Värmullsåsen 2 in Rally Sweden at the same spot where Henning Solberg and Manfred Stohl went off back in 2006 (that time I think the stage was called Sundsjön). The place proved to be dramatic even this time, when Peter van Merksteijn parked his car quite a bit off the road in the right hand bend at the spot. He was lucky that there was an army of Finns, Swedes and others armed with everything from shovels to ropes ready to assist. Below is a few of my photos from the off. A larger Rally Sweden gallery incl. more photos from the off and a lot of other things will come later – and so will my reflections from the weekend…
All photos are taken by Rasmus Bjerén and protected by copyright. If you wanna share them, please link to this post and do not copy the image or link directly to it! 
Tags: 2010, crash, henning solberg, manfred stohl, off road, peter van merksteijn sr, photo, rally, rally sweden, ss21, värmullsåsen
Posted in Swedish Rallying, WRC | No Comments »
Thursday, January 28th, 2010
The Svully Rally Dahbi in Norway this weekend will be one of the main events for many drivers in their testing for Rally Sweden. With extremely short transport distances compared to the amount of SS the event will be cheap and effective – and with the key people from Rally Norway’s organisation in the lead, such a rally is almost a given success. Among the entries are Petter Solberg, Henning Solberg, Marcus Grönholm, Patrik Sandell and Andreas Mikkelsen.
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!
Tags: abu dhabi, andreas mikkelsen, bergslagsrallyt, british, henning solberg, ltd, marcus grönholm, patrik sandell, petter solberg, pg andersson, svully rally dahbi, svully rally dahbi limited, svully rally dhabi, uk, united kingdom
Posted in General, General rallying, National Rallying, Rally testing, WRC | No Comments »
Saturday, January 23rd, 2010
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
Tags: 2010, andreas mikkelsen, citroen c4wrc, eyvind brynhildsen, finnskogsvalsen, ford fiesta super2000, ford focus wrc05, henning solberg, ilka minor, jonas andersson, mads östberg, mountain rally, norweigan championship, petter solberg, pswrt, rally sweden, recce, s2000, skoda fabia super2000, subaru impreza, sveinung bieltvedt
Posted in National Rallying, Rally testing, S-WRC / WRC Cup, Swedish Rallying, WRC | No Comments »
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
Henning Solberg and Marcus Grönholm are Stobart’s nominated points scorers for Rally Sweden… No wonder, since both are snow experts and both probably even deserve to be called Sweden expert. Marcus has won the rally five times and Henning has had numerous top scorings during the years. Without any technical problems on their Ford Focus WRCs I think both will be able to score top six placings and at least one of them probably better – maybe including podiums…
Tags: ford, ford focus wrc, henning solberg, m-sport, marcus grönholm, rally sweden, stobart
Posted in Silly season, WRC | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
Henning Solberg will prepare for this years Rally Sweden by doing the Norweigan Championship round Mountain Rally this weekend. This will also be the first appearance together with his new co-driver, Ilka Minor. Despite the fact that Henning Solberg has won more Norweigan Championship events than anyone else, he doesn’t expect to win. He’ll be busy recording a TV show during the recce on Friday, and will therefore drive only on the notes from his appearance in the same rally in 2006. However, I think we shall expect Henning to be really quick and maybe even challenge for the win…
Tags: 2010, henning solberg, ilka minor, mountain rally, nm, norweigan championship, rally sweden
Posted in National Rallying, Rally testing, WRC | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
Cato Menkerud, former co-driver of Henning Solberg, joins Eyvind Brynhildsen in his S-WRC assault this year. Until now, Brynhildsen has been co-driven by the experienced French co-driver Denis Giraudet, who seems to have been set aside when Menkerud got free. Menkerud will join the young Norweigan starting with a test already next week, and then in the next Norweigan Championship round, Mountain Rally, on the 23rd of January – and will then continue during he S-WRC season.
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!
Tags: 2010, cato menkerud, denis giraudet, eyvind brynhildsen, france, french, henning solberg, mountain rally, norway, rally sweden, s-wrc
Posted in National Rallying, S-WRC / WRC Cup, Silly season, WRC | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
The Rally Sweden organisers have updated the entry list on their website, and now it’s starting to look like something. Henning Solberg seems to get his pieces together and is entered in a Ford Focus WRC08, Jocke Nyman completes a three man (PG Andersson, Patrik Flodin and Jocke Nyman) strong Swedish lineup that will hopefully conquer the group N class of the rally and Al-Qassimi, Kuipers x2, van Merksteijn x2, Grönholm and Therman, Jouni Arolainen, Mads Östberg, Kimi Räikkönen, Matthew Wilson among others making the WRC class a real nest will hopefully assure that the rally comes down to history as one of the best snow rallies in a long time.
Also S2000 will be interesting to follow, where home ace Patrik Sandell will be hunted by skilled drivers as Mikkelsen, Brynhildsen, Prokop and Tuohino. Also Solowow, Sousa and Hunt and heavily experienced home ace Per-Arne Sääv, running on the organizers wild card, are entered in S2000 cars.
My current most interesting list (to be updated, for sure!):
- Loeb vs. Hirvonen + Latvala
- Petter vs. Henning
- How fast can Grönholm and Räikkönen be?
- What happens to the Swede superfight in group N: Andersson + Flodin + Nyman?
- The Super2000 superfight: Sandell vs. Mikkelsen + Brynhildsen + Prokop + Tuohino
Every single one of the points above will probably be world class entertainment – and of course I’ll get back with more comments, interviews etc. related to the entries. This is just the start…!
Read the full entrylist here
Tags: andreas mikkelsen, entrylist, eyvind brynhildsen, group n, henning solberg, janne tuohino, jari-matti latvala, jocke nyman, kimi räikkönen, marcus grönholm, martin prokop, mikko hirvonen, patrik flodin, petter solberg, pg andersson, rally sweden, s2000, sebastien loeb, super2000
Posted in S-WRC / WRC Cup, Silly season, Swedish Rallying, WRC | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
There has been big doubts about Henning Solberg’s plans the last few weeks, but in an interview at Motorsport.no, Solberg’s manager Leif Nilsen indicates that a solution is close. According to Nilsen, Henning will focus fully on rally – which means he will probably solve his rallycross car and buy a rally car for tests and events instead. Nilsen claims that a deal is 70% done and that multiple sponsors are currently in meetings – so a solution may be really close. Regarding the entry to Rally Sweden – that officially closed at 15PM today local time – the team says they have the situation “under control”. And of course they have… The organisers would be stupid if they didn’t accept a slightly late entry from a star like Henning, so that wont be a problem. Henning’s budget will be slightly higher than last year. Now the question is – what car will Henning drive?
Tags: 2010, budget, car, entry, henning solberg, leif nilsen, rally sweden, rallycross
Posted in Silly season, WRC | No Comments »
Friday, January 8th, 2010
Speaking with WRC.com about his split with co-driver Cato Menkerud, Henning Solberg claims that a girl may partner him in the right seat this season:
- 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.
Tags: 2010, anders gröndal, cato menkerud, co-driver, codriver, eyvind brynhildsen, girl, henning solberg, maria andersson, patrik flodin, veronica engan, WRC
Posted in National Rallying, Silly season, WRC | 3 Comments »
Friday, January 8th, 2010
Reading Autosport’s article of yesterday regarding the manufacturer teams in the 2010 WRC, you can read a number of names that Autosport says “are expected” for the championship. No name is a complete surprise – but it would be interesting to know how good coverage David Evans has for them. He use to know good, but in this case it sounds a lot like speculation on some of the names.
First off, the safe names are Federico Villagra in Munchis WRT, Ken Block in Monster WRT, Petter Solberg in Solberg PSWRT – and the almost safe (?) Matthew Wilson in Stobart WRT. So far no problem. But then comes Henning Solberg as expected in Stobart – and that’s a little bit more uncertain. I know that Henning targets a seat in the WRC again, but I also know that this very much depends on a renewed contract with Expert for 2010. The second questionmark is Gigi Galli and PG Andersson – where one of them or even both are said to be joining the PSWRT. I know nothing about Galli, but when it comes to PG I know he was in discussions regarding the PSWRT early this autumn – but then he has announced that he probably can’t collect the money needed. I’ll get back with a small post on PG’s future later today.
So, it would be really intersting to know what facts are behind the article. If Evans get three right out of three on the uncertain things, it would be like heaven to any rally addict. I guess the future will show…
Tags: 2010, federico villagra, gigi galli, henning solberg, ken block, monster, munchis, petter solberg, pg andersson, rallycross, stobart, WRC
Posted in Silly season, WRC | 1 Comment »
