Posts Tagged ‘pswrt’
Sunday, January 24th, 2010
As most of you know, Petter Solberg tested his car in Finnskogsvalsen yesterday. Here are two video clips of it, one is an interview (in Swedish/Norweigan) at the start – and one is a clip from SS2. I’ve made a summary of the most important things said in the interview below the clips.
Driving on SS2:
The interview:
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…”
Tags: 2010, citroen c4wrc, finnskogsvalsen, france, gearbox, interview, mexico, petter solberg, privateer, pswrt, rally sweden, sebastien loeb, subaru, summary, testing, torsby
Posted in Rally testing, Swedish Rallying, WRC | 1 Comment »
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 »
Monday, January 11th, 2010
In the updated entry list for Rally Sweden, Petter Solberg is entered with a Citroen C4 WRC. This may be the end of the speculations on wether the Norweigan would go for Ford or Citroen in the 2010 season. He has previously announced that nothing was certain, but that C4 would probably be his first choice.
Besides Petter’s entry, the list contains no big surprises. However, Polish driver Michal Solowow is entered in a Peugeot 207 S2000 – something that has been rumoured but as far as I know not confirmed until now. A lot of names should still come in the entry list – the time expires tomorrow at 15PM local time for WRC entries.
Read the current entry list here (external link)
Tags: citroen c4 wrc, entries, entry list, entrylist, michal solowow, petter solberg, petter solberg world rally team, peugeot 207 super2000, pswrt, rally sweden, s2000
Posted in S-WRC / WRC Cup, Silly season, Swedish Rallying, WRC | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
According to today’s Värmlands Folkblad, PG Andersson is looking to join Petter Solberg World Rally Team for the 2010 season. Discussions have been held during a long time between Petter and PG but has now intensified. Believed to be left is “just” the sealing a budget of around €200000 – 300000. If the plans become reality, however, PG will not drive a WRC car alongside Petter, but a Super2000 (most likely a Skoda or Peugeot) in the Production WRC – which would anyway form a good preparation for the upcoming WRC probably dominated by S2000 cars.
My opinion is that getting PG into a good team in the WRC and with a mentor such as Petter would be really great and that is of course big news. However, one should remember that the amount of money still missing is huge, and from what I know it forms around half of the budget of a Super2000 season. This means that the news is still just half a seat and there is a long way to go.
Let’s keep our fingers crossed that PG and Petter get everything well together!
Tags: 2010, petter solberg, petter solberg world rally team, peugeot 207 super2000, pg andersson, pswrt, skoda fabia super2000, super 2000
Posted in Silly season, Swedish Rallying, WRC | 4 Comments »
Sunday, May 24th, 2009
Citroen has been facing the same dilemma all the season, but now they’re really face to face with it:
If Petter doesn’t get fresh parts of the Xsara the car isn’t good enough for him to be happy, and if he does get fresh parts the car+driver mix is way too good for Citroen’s taste.
As soon as Petter got his new gear in Sardinia, Loeb was forced behind Solberg in fourth place. For sure Loeb had some bad luck, but without Petter he would get six points instead of five… I’m sure the Citroen bosses are worried that Petter will steal more points from Loeb and more important from the manufacturer team later this year.
As I see it, there are two main scenarios that are really simple:
- Scenario one, Citroën accepts Petter’s speed and the fact that he may take a few points away of Loeb, Sordo and the junior team (the effect on the junior team is small, as they normally aren’t good enough to pass Petter even with his old gear) during the rest of the year. They let him have the 2006 parts, a good engine mapping and the passive differentials – that all allow him to be fast. (The parts are already given to him, and it will be hard to take them away – but Citroen are still able to give him a weaker engine mapping to make him go slower…)
- Scenario two, Citroen think they cannot afford Petter to be fast with his Xsara, and they reduce his chances of a win by not giving him any further upgrades and by making changes to his engine mapping. However, I’m sure Petter wouldn’t accept that (PSWRT and cheif engineer Fx Demaison are probably staring like eagles on the performance of the engine after the turns with Citroen), and I’m quite sure they he want to see continous progress on the car – otherwise they’ll leave Citroen for Ford or possibly even the Peugeot 307 (read more here and here).
I think the decision for scenario one or two will be done partly by Petter’s feeling in Sardinia, if he’s happy enough or not – but also by Loeb’s and Sordo’s pace in the next few rallies. If the Citroen management see Ford getting closer in the race for the manufacturers title, I’m quite sure they won’t allow Petter to continue taking points away from them. However, if Loeb remains unthreatened for the drivers title and if Citroen can keep their distance in the manufacturers championship, maybe it’s OK. Citroen have probably already got used to the fact that their juniors aren’t able to beat Petter more than on random occasions…
The future will tell…
UPDATE:
Read more (in Norweigan) about Petter’s performance in Sardinia on the following (external) links:
http://www.dagsavisen.no/sport/article417284.ece
http://www.vg.no/sport/motor/artikkel.php?artid=547805
Tags: 2006, championship, citroen, dilemma, drivers, engine mapping, ford, manufacturers, petter solberg, petter solberg world rally team, peugeot 307wrc, points, pswrt, sardinia, spec, upgrade, xsara
Posted in Silly season, WRC | No Comments »
