A lot of testing are going on currently, with Rally Estonia, Rally Finland and Rally Acores close to each others. Here is a video of Norweigan Mads Östberg testing for this weekend’s Rally Estonia.
Posts Tagged ‘mads östberg’
Video: Mads Östberg testing for Rally Estonia
Friday, July 15th, 2011
Mads Östberg in MINI next year?
Monday, February 22nd, 2010Rumours have been going on about Mads Östberg’s marque switch that will inevitably come next year with the new regulations that make his Subaru Impreza WRC’s useless in the World Rally Championship. Rumours have linked him to MINI, that will probably enter the WRC next year with the help from Prodrive – the same company that earlier ran Subaru’s works team in the championship.
According to my sources Mads and his father (also team boss of the Adapta team) had a meeting with MINI representatives during Rally Sweden together with their friends at Prodrive. I have no clue what was said in the meeting (if it really did happen) but I would really like to know 
Rally Sweden scrutineering photos
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010Here are a few photos from the scrutineering this evening. All photos are taken by Mikael Hjerpe, big thanks to him!
P-A Sääv's Skoda Fabia S2000 in scrutineering.
Eyvind Brynhildsen's Skoda Fabia S2000 in scrutineering.
Car's waiting for scrutineering outside Svensk Bilprovning in Karlstad.
Mads Östberg's Subaru Impreza WRC.
Patrik Flodin's Subaru.
Patrik Flodin himself...
Journalists and drivers waiting at the scrutineering.
Petter Solberg fastest through Finnskogsvalsen – Gröndal wins Mountain Rally
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
Adapta WRT leaving Subaru behind?
Sunday, January 17th, 2010After a disastrous season in 2009, the Norweigan Adapta World Rally Team looks set to leave the Subaru brand behind. Mads Östberg has said that he has never liked the Subaru Impreza WRC S14 – and for Rally Sweden it looks like he’ll be back in the team’s older Impreza S12B. However, after that – Adapta may have done their last rally with Subaru.
The new target for 2010 is likely to be S-WRC and the Super2000 class. The team reckons that they won’t be able to get a Ford or Citroen car, and I guess they consider S2000 a good warm-up for the 2011 WRC1.6T regulations. The team hopes to have a Super2000 alternative ready for Rally Jordan in the beginning of April.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we got another Fiesta in the S-WRC from Rally Jordan on…
PG Andersson to choose between S2000 and Grp N based on the result in the Norweigan Sigdalsrally this weekend
Friday, January 8th, 2010Not much have been heard about PG Andersson lately, but in today’s NWT PG says that his drive in the Norweigan Championship round Sigdalsrallyt this weekend (PG made a late entry) will be used to decide if he’s gonna do Rally Sweden in a Super2000 rental car or in his own Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX. PG will drive the Mitsubishi in Norway along with co-driver Anders Fredriksson, since his regular co-driver Jonas Andersson is busy at the side of Mads Östberg.
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.
Crazy Mads Östberg – co-driven by his girlfriend?!
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009Mads Östberg will be co-driven by his girlfriend, Norweigan co-driver Veronica Engan, in Sardinia. The decision comes after Östbergs split with co-driver Ole Kristian Unnerud that is said to be caused by Unneruds family situation. However, it’s quite obvious that a the truth much more lies in the co-driver mistake Unnerud made in the recent “Sörlandsrallyt”. No matter the factors, it seems like a crazy idea to be co-driven by your own girlfriend – even though it’s not the first time (Mattias Ekström+Tina Thörner is among the ones who have done it). Luckily, Östberg have understood that himself and says that it’s only a temporary solution…
Anyway, it will be fun to see what they can achieve. From what I’ve heard, Engan is a good co-driver.
Link: Read more on WRC.com
Catch-up: Rally of Portugal, Sandell making PWRC interesting, Latvala’s future and Petter’s legionella disease…
Saturday, April 18th, 2009So, after the long time off, here comes a catch up of what I haven’t mentioned:
- Rally of Portugal ended quite as expected. Loeb first, Hirvonen next, the Sordo and then finally something unexpected: Petter Solberg. I’m really impressed by seeing him so high up in the standings. The car went well in Cyprus, but that’s a much slower and way different rally. I’m really impressed and I must admit I was wrong regarding Portugal, but I still think Petter shouldn’t expect very much of the Xsara later on in the faster rallies of the season. Anyway, Portugal was a real Norweigan party with Petter 4th, Henning 5th and Östberg 6th!
- Patrik Sandell made the PWRC season much more interesting when he went off the road early in Portugal, allowing for Armindo Araujo to win the group N class. This means a huge change in the standings where Araujo now leads with 23 points, before Sandell on 20 and both Brynhildsen and Prokop on 14. Now we just need a Brynhildsen and Prokop to take one step up – then the PWRC is a real nest. In fact, I consider PWRC at least as interesting this season as the WRC.
- Added to Petter’s impressive performance in Portugal, one should take into account that he was ill. On the run-up to the rally he was diagnosed with legionella, an evil disease that can be really bad. Petter is still suffering from the bacteria, but doctors have this week made sure that there will be no permanent harm to Petter’s lungs. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Petter has bronchitis and will have to take medicins for a while – medicins that interfere with the doping rules of the WRC. Petter has discussed the issue with the WRC doctors, and he will now have to stop eating the medicines before starting in Argentina next weekend.
- A lot about Petter, but it should also be added that he have tested the Abarth Grande Punto Super2000 – and Abarth immediately sent out a press release that Petter was looking to do a few IRC events in the car this year. I don’t know if that’s true, but didn’t Petter say something about a focus on the WRC? Well, I don’t know, I just know that I probably wouldn’t choose the Abarth…
- Conrad Rautenbach will go to Azores in a PH Sport backed Peugeot 207 Super2000. I guess his competitive impression will be quite weak, as usual, but it still annoys me considering the doubtful source of his money. When will somebody ask this guy where he get all his cash? Considering that he now adds an IRC drive on top of his current Citroen drive in WRC, war and crimes(?) seems to be really a good affair.
- Jari-Matti Latvala immediately got speculated to leave the team after his frightening crash in Portugal. After 20 rolls, voices were raised everywhere that he should be thrown out of the Ford team. I think that Latvala’s team-mate, Mikko Hirvonen, has proven quite the opposite. Hirvonen’s career in Subaru in 2004 was disastrous, but exactly that kind of learning period that a young drivers needs – and to stop investing in Latvala now would be totally stupid, since he has shown numerous times that he has got the speed. Just wait and see, if Latvala get’s the time he will show everyone… (and at the moment he seems to have gotten a little bit more time)
- That’s it – keep coming here, because Rally Argentina is coming up – and I’ll try to be a little bit more regular in my posting again!
Adapta fears sabotage – I fear imagination
Tuesday, February 17th, 2009A few days ago I posted a video about Henning being furious on his mechanics, because of a mistake. For a short while, it seems like Henning thought that the fault was caused by sabotage, but he has now changed his mind after talking to the parc fermé guards in person. However, the Adapta team scored a very faded result on the event and they immediately woke up when talking about sabotage. Team manager Mårten Östberg tells Norweigan media that they monitored the car all time except for the nightly parc fermé. Despite the fact that the parc fermé is guarded by guards appointed by the FIA, Östberg thinks that the car was sabotaged there:
- We have no suspect, but as we see it there is no doubt that the car has been sabotaged, he says to moss-avis.no.
I have of course no clue if Östberg’s car has been sabotaged – but it sounds quite strange. I think the team should be very, very careful before doing so serious accusations. Even though Mads Östberg says to moss-avis.no that the sabotage itself didn’t cause their bad results – it mostly sounds like losers talk now…
Video: Mads Östberg close call on SS12 in Norway
Monday, February 16th, 2009Mads Östberg had a half-bad moment on SS12 Ringsåker this weekend. Watch the video:
Thanks to Paulf7uk.
