Click here to view the embedded video.

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

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

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…

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.

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

• 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!

- 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…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thanks to Paulf7uk.

Some people have had problems this morning, including both home runners in the Adapta World Rally Team. Anders Gröndal went off the road into a ditch on SS5. He managed to get back on the road, but the car is damaged and he is reported to have gearbox problems. Remains to see if the Adapta WRT can fix the problems in the remote service. No matter what, he is now more than 12 minutes off the lead. Also Östberg had problems on SS5 when he overtook a junction and had to reverse to get back on track. He lost around one minute on the stage and is now on 13th position – but with gearbox problems reported.

In PWRC Patrik Sandell shows the potential of the Skoda Fabia S2000 and leads the field. However, Andreas Mikkelsen has beaten Sandell in two stages in a row now, showing that the classical group N cars can still challenge. Sandell will have to look out not to be overtaken by Mikkelsen who is less than 10 seconds behind. For Flodin and Brynhildsen everything seems to have went wrong on SS5. Both have lost more than 11 minutes, but the problem is unknown. Clear is that they wont be battling for the PWRC victory.

The battle in Norway will continue at 12:51 local time with the Opaker stage.

Maybe, and also probably I’m afraid, it will be regarding the Adapta World Rally Team. Adapta announced already last year that they would do a large assault this season with Mads Östberg in a Subaru. Maybe it’s some kind of up-hotted release regarding that? Perhaps they’ve managed to get an even better deal following the Subaru retirement, a second Norweigan driver besides Mads Östberg and even better Prodrive support? Not big news, I guess – but eyy… Let’s hope for something better until tomorrow!

WRC entries

Mikko Hirvonen / Jarmo Lehtinen, Ford Focus WRC, 12 rallies
Jari-Matti Latvala / Miika Anttila, Ford Focus WRC, 12 rallies
Khalid Al-Quassimi / Michael Orr (?), Ford Focus WRC, 6 rallies

Matthew Wilson / Scott Martin, Ford Focus WRC, 12 rallies
Henning Solberg / Cato Menkerud, Ford Focus WRC, 12 rallies 
Urmo Aava / Kuldar Sikk, Ford Focus WRC, 8 rallies

Federico Villagra / Jorge Perez Companc (?), Ford Focus WRC, 8 rallies
2nd Munchis – various drivers / ?, Ford Focus WRC, 8 rallies

Peter van Merksteijn / Erwin Berkhof, Ford Focus WRC, 8 rallies
Peter van Merksteijn Jr / Eddy Chevalier, Ford Focus WRC, 8 rallies

Sebastien Loeb / Daniel Elena, Citroen C4 WRC, 12 rallies
Daniel Sordo / Marc Marti, Citroen C4 WRC, 12 rallies

Conrad Rautenbach / Daniel Barritt, Citroen C4 WRC, 12 rallies
Sebastien Ogier / Julien Ingrassia, Citroen C4 WRC, 6 rallies
Evgeny Novikov / Dale Moscatt, Citroen C4 WRC, 8 rallies
Chris Atkinson / Stephane Prevot, Citroen C4 WRC, at least 1 rally

Mads Östberg / Ole Kristian Unnerud, Subaru Impreza WRC, 8 rallies

So, I think that was it… Don’t beat me if I’m wrong or if I’m missing something. Just tell me in the comments, and if you can; add a source link. I’ll try to keep this list updated as good as possible.