With only a few hours left until the Rally Sweden entries close, I called PG Andersson for a chat. A now he has decided – he’ll go for the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX in WRC season opener Rally Sweden. PG says:
- I will do the rally in my own Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX. I’ve been testing and discussing with them all, Skoda, Ford, Peugeot… Everyone. But in the end, price the made the decision… There still is a small chance that it will be another Evo IX, a brand new one. But it’s not very likely…
Price has been a big factor to PG when deciding – and that’s no big surprise. Talking on the prices of a Super2000 car, PG says that the price level has now reached where WRC was five years ago, which means around €100 000 per rally. A start in his own car makes PG save half the money for later…
Andersson will do the rally with co-driver Anders Fredriksson, who also sat alongside him in this weekend’s Sigdalsrally in Norway. The duo will probably perform a test the weekend before the rally – and the next few weeks PG will spend on rebuilding the car to get it in good shape. Talking on his chances in the rally, Andersson doesn’t say much:
- I don’t know what my chances are. I hope to be able to keep up to speed with some of the Super2000 guys, but it will be hard to go as fast as someone like Mikkelsen, for example. We’ll see…
Even if rallying nowadays is very much about money, a crucial thing for a driver like PG – a clear talent that is without a contract – is to be seen and get PR. Going into the season it seems like S-WRC will take a role of “mini WRC” as it’s the upcoming big class for next year (and despite the until now weak entry list for the S-WRC championship), and that it will therefore render some extra interest from media. The production car championship will therefore probably be even more in the shadows than before. Asking PG about what he thinks about that, he says:
- It’s all about scoring results – as always – but yes, it seems like the PWRC wont get much attention. However, hasn’t it been like that for the last few years? It’s compareable to the JWRC that rendered some interest during the first years when I drove, but it has then fallen and become more and more hidden…
Regarding the rest of the season, PG confirms that he is looking at Sardinia and that it now looks a bit better for the rest of the season than it did earlier. He also says that he has the budget neccessary to do both events, but it’s still not at all certain that he will enter the Italian IRC round. So, for us fans we’ll just need to have patience, hope for a good result for PG in Rally Sweden and then we’ll see!
