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

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More of Sandell including the car livery:

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Anders Gröndal performed tests with his Subaru Impreza on Sunday in Norway, and even he got caught by the cameras:

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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…

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I know that Mads Östberg tested with Gröndal earlier this week, but still there seems to be no dedicated video available from that test.

Gröndals test didn’t went very good. He had damper problems from the beginning – and something happened during the test that forced the team to cancel, and that also jeopardizes Gröndal’s scheduled local event Romhjulsrallyt, a few days after christmas.

Rally Poland runs the 26-28th of June this year, and is quite similar to the Neste Oil Rally Finland – Grönholm’s home rally that he has previously said he hopes to drive.

Besides the test, Marcus car livery for Rally of Portugal has now been revealed – and discussions are already running high on the Internet about it being ugly. In my opinion, it’s not a really beutiful one – but still not ugly. Just a little bit boring, but probably doing it’s job to show off the sponsor logotypes quite well. Regarding the sponsors, it seems like the previously tipped sponsor Vodafone is not involved – instead the national tourist authority, Tourismo de Portugal, is main sponsor along with ACP, the Portugese motorsport organisation.

Here’s the livery:

Marcus Grönholm's Subaru Impreza WRC for Rally of Portugal

So, when comparing speeds, Grönholm will probably keep that in mind. In fact – that’s probably why Marcus chose the Impreza. He can make his comeback in a safe way where he can’t lose, making a half bad result and then blaming the car. I think he realises that it wouldn’t be very smart to get into the Focus, a car that today is the back pocket of Hirvonen, Latvala and to a large extent even Henning Solberg and Matthew Wilson. In the same manner it would be stupid to get into the Citroen of Loeb and Sordo. He would risk getting crushed – without anything to blame.

Probably the most interesting question is wether this is a one time outing, or if Grönholm will try to make a true comeback to a full (or close to) season in the WRC? Grönholm himself says it’s a single event and nothing more. But he fills in that after this he will analyse his feelings and decide on the future – indicating that he may do a larger scale comeback…

Imagine that larger comeback, what would it mean? I’m well aware Grönholm negotiated a full season for Subaru before the marque retired from the WRC in December but I can’t think of a full comeback in the Subaru Impreza. Why would Marcus get back to rallying full-time without the real chance of winning? That’s not really a former WRC champion’s style… No, it would probably be in another car – but who would be interested? Marcus is good for sure, but not an upcoming name. So, given the fact that WRC works teams doesn’t really grow on trees – I don’t know, actually…

Anyway, let’s assume Marcus did get a good car, perhaps a Ford. Would he win? And would it be good? Honestly, maybe he’d get few podiums, but in the big picture I don’t think it would be so good. He is getting older and all careers have their end. Running in the Peugeot 307, Marcus made himself an even larger WRC profile than before by being bitter of the car. It worked out really well and was entertaining, but to do that without being considered a boring person requires quite big – and fresh – star quality. It also requires reasonably recent good results – and Marcus doesn’t have all this anymore. People would no longer consider him a genious in a bad position – just a bitter old man not knowing when to end his career.

Counting all those parts together, I really hope that Marcus enjoys his one time comeback in Portugal – and maybe a few more guest entires. But I hope it ends there. Not that I don’t wanna see Marcus drive, I would love it. But I don’t wanna see a good star and a fantastic WRC profile fall off his heights and become a struggler that just didn’t know where to stop. Marcus has proven what he can do – and I think he knows himself that a full time comeback would just be stupid. So, that gives you my bet; don’t expect a full scale comeback.

Grøndal has previously driven earlier versions of the Subaru Impreza WRC in his own team. He is joined by Swedish co-driver Maria Andersson.