Swede inspiration
There’s a heavy Swedish flavour to Driven today. So why not continue your weekend in the right way by enjoying Rally Sweden, which kicked off on Thursday night with a super special stage and runs through the weekend.
Unseasonal weather for this winter event has brought about a slightly different route for 2020. Of the four stages being run on Friday and today, there’s a second stage last used in 2012, and a third that’s completely new for the event.
Thierry Neuville is leading the championship after his win on the seasonopening Rallye Monte-Carlo. Hyundai team-mate Ott Tanak is aiming to bounce back from his crash in the last round (he won Sweden last year), while Craig Breen is driving the team’s third i20 WRC.
There are no fewer than five Toyota Yaris WRCs on the entry list for Sweden, with the factory cars of Sebastien Ogier, Elfyn Evans and Kalle Rovanpera joined by young Japanese driver Takamoto Katsuta and JariMatti Latvala — returning to an event he has won four times in the past as a privateer.
M Sport has Finns Esapekka Lappi and Teemu Suninen, with Lithuanian driver Deividas Jocius in a Ford Fiesta WRC. Rally Sweden has a long history.
It was first run in 1950 as the Rally to the Midnight Sun, but this year isn’t the big anniversary you might think. It’s only the
68th running because it’s been cancelled twice: once in 1974 due to the oil crisis (and only one year after the event was added to the WRC calendar), and again in 1990 due to warm weather.
Fun fact: the last Swedish driver to win Rally Sweden was Kenneth Eriksson, way back in 1997 with the Subaru Impreza WRC
97.
His co-driver Staffan Parmander was a Swede, too.