I Like It Sideways
02-20-2007, 12:57 PM
Marcus Gronholm and codriver Timo Rautiainen cruised to victory in the 2007 Uddeholm Sweden Rally today. It was their fifth win in the Swedish winter event equalling Bjorn Waldegards number of victories.
Only Stig Blomqvist with seven wins head Gronholm and Waldegard in the 55 year history of the rally.
- We built a good margin yesterday, said Marcus whose Ford Focus ran faultlessly.
- But I still don’t know why Sébastien didn’t try. We had a long day today as well, and I would surely have attacked if I had been in his position.
Loeb was happy with second place. Maybe he thought of next weekends championship rally in Norway. Second place was also good enough to maintain the championship lead.
- Norway will be the third rally in succession where we use the same engine, due to the new regulations. We still have to se how that works, said the reigning world champion.
By finishing third Mikko Hirvonen did what Ford expected of him, but Citroën keep a close lead in the makes championship despite the fact that Loeb’s team mate Dani Sordo only managed twelfth overall.
Fourth place went to Henning Solberg, who strengthens his morale for the home event next weekend.
Daniel Carlsson was the Swedish hope and he finished fifth after fighting off an attack from Chris Atkinson who passed him momentarily in the classification today, but then went off and dropped to eighth behind Toni Gardemeister and Manfred Stohl. Carlsson could not repeat last year’s podium, but considering that this was his first rally on English pace notes, he was quite happy.
Sunday was the coldest day of the rally, with morning temperatures below minus 20 Centigrades. The cold claimed its victims, when two of the three Stobart team Fords stopped in the first stage. Frozen breather pipes created excessive pressure resulting in oil spill.
Juho Hänninen in a Mitsubishi was leading the Production Car World Championship, PWRC, class for the latter part of the event and celebrated as the winner. But technical investigation showed his Mitsubishi was fitted with two extra fuel pumps not in conformity with homologation. It is not thought that the pumps which are mounted inside the tank and feeding the catch tank from which the main fuel pump operates, gives any performance advantage.
The victory instead went to Sweden’s Oscar Svedlund ahead of Finns Anton Alen and Kristian Sohlberg.
Finn Jukka Ketomäki, who is not doing the championship was the fastest Group N driver in the rally until the turbo failed in his Subaru engine Sunday morning.
http://www.swedishrally.com/resources/images/21.jpg
http://www.swedishrally.com/resources/images/33.jpg
http://www.swedishrally.com/resources/images/35.jpg
http://www.swedishrally.com/resources/images/36.jpg
http://www.swedishrally.com/resources/images/37.jpg
http://www.swedishrally.com/resources/images/11.jpg
http://www.swedishrally.com/resources/images/5.jpg
Only Stig Blomqvist with seven wins head Gronholm and Waldegard in the 55 year history of the rally.
- We built a good margin yesterday, said Marcus whose Ford Focus ran faultlessly.
- But I still don’t know why Sébastien didn’t try. We had a long day today as well, and I would surely have attacked if I had been in his position.
Loeb was happy with second place. Maybe he thought of next weekends championship rally in Norway. Second place was also good enough to maintain the championship lead.
- Norway will be the third rally in succession where we use the same engine, due to the new regulations. We still have to se how that works, said the reigning world champion.
By finishing third Mikko Hirvonen did what Ford expected of him, but Citroën keep a close lead in the makes championship despite the fact that Loeb’s team mate Dani Sordo only managed twelfth overall.
Fourth place went to Henning Solberg, who strengthens his morale for the home event next weekend.
Daniel Carlsson was the Swedish hope and he finished fifth after fighting off an attack from Chris Atkinson who passed him momentarily in the classification today, but then went off and dropped to eighth behind Toni Gardemeister and Manfred Stohl. Carlsson could not repeat last year’s podium, but considering that this was his first rally on English pace notes, he was quite happy.
Sunday was the coldest day of the rally, with morning temperatures below minus 20 Centigrades. The cold claimed its victims, when two of the three Stobart team Fords stopped in the first stage. Frozen breather pipes created excessive pressure resulting in oil spill.
Juho Hänninen in a Mitsubishi was leading the Production Car World Championship, PWRC, class for the latter part of the event and celebrated as the winner. But technical investigation showed his Mitsubishi was fitted with two extra fuel pumps not in conformity with homologation. It is not thought that the pumps which are mounted inside the tank and feeding the catch tank from which the main fuel pump operates, gives any performance advantage.
The victory instead went to Sweden’s Oscar Svedlund ahead of Finns Anton Alen and Kristian Sohlberg.
Finn Jukka Ketomäki, who is not doing the championship was the fastest Group N driver in the rally until the turbo failed in his Subaru engine Sunday morning.
http://www.swedishrally.com/resources/images/21.jpg
http://www.swedishrally.com/resources/images/33.jpg
http://www.swedishrally.com/resources/images/35.jpg
http://www.swedishrally.com/resources/images/36.jpg
http://www.swedishrally.com/resources/images/37.jpg
http://www.swedishrally.com/resources/images/11.jpg
http://www.swedishrally.com/resources/images/5.jpg