Rally Sweden kicked off the new season and the start of a new wrc era with a new breed of wrc cars. Everyone was very excited and no-one really could predict how it would all plan out.
We learned alot from the first round. We learned that the Scandanavians are still the masters of driving on snow. The podium was occupied by all Scandanavians.
Mikko Hirvonen won the season opener followed closely by Norwegian Mads Ostberg who suprised everyone with an impressive drive leading the rally after day 1 setting a pace that the big boys just couldnt compete with. The final podium spot went to another Ford man Jari-Matti Latvala.
Suprisingly you might say, 7 time wrc champion Sebastien Loeb could only manage to finish 6th on the event. You can put that down to the fact that he needed more testing with the new car on snow or you could blame his job of road sweeping. He lost bags of time on day 1, first on the road sweeping away the fresh snow He also had punctures. It was a rally that I'm sure the World Champion would like to forget.
Rally Sweden also featured the first powerstage of the season won by Sebastien Ogier who picked up the 3 extra points, 2 points went to Sebastien Loeb and 1 to Jari-Matti.
The powerstage was eventfull to say the least... when Petter Solberg entered the stage commentators picked up on the fact that the car was driving particularly slower than Solberg would drive, when the tv coverage switched to the onboard camera we all got a shock to see that it was infact his co-driver Chris Patterson driving the car and Petter Co driving (well telling him exactly what to do.. up a gear....down two gear....quick)
It turned out that Petter had been caught speeding on the friday afternoon road section and issued with a driving ban which came into force just before the powerstage which forced Patterson to drive the stage despite the fact that he had never driven their DS3 before (Bet Chris never thought he'd have to !)
Chris brought the car home to fifth overall a good start to the season for the Petter Solberg WRT.
LINK TO SOLBERGS RUN OF THE POWERSTAGE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCnjVQezDvE
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