Rally news
M-sport driver Teemu Suninen is confident Formula 1 star Valtteri Bottas won’t show himself up on his Arctic Rally debut this week.
Suninen has spoken to his countryman about the Rovaniemibased event, which will be the Mercedes driver’s first time competing in a rally. He drives a Ford Fiesta WRC and starts at car number one, leading away a typically strong field of Finnish R5 cars.
“I know him quite well,” Suninen told MN. “We have the same sponsor and that makes us together a little bit. I would have liked to make deeper cooperation, but there wasn’t such a long time before my first race. We have been in touch on the telephone talking about what to expect, what he might struggle with and how he could get out of the problems.”
Suninen expects Bottas to struggled with pacenotes and the totally alien concept of sharing the car with another person, but beyond that the car and environment will be tough.
“Driving a four-wheel-drive car on these studded tyres could be difficult,” he said. “His mind will be telling him all the time the snow and ice are slippery, but if the conditions are good then he will have some really good grip.
“It’s not going to be easy for him, he starts from zero experience – but OK, he’s one of the best drivers in the world. I hope he enjoys it, it’s interesting to have some drivers coming from a different discipline. If I wasn’t in Monte then I would go to Arctic Rally to support him.”
The Arctic Lapland Rally is one of the toughest on the Finnish calendar, with 10 stages – five on Friday afternoon and five on Saturday – totalling 150 competitive miles. The longest stage of the event is a 26-miler running in the dark on Friday evening. lniclas Gronholm, son of two-time World Rally champion Marcus Gronholm and GRC RX racer, is also on the entry list in a Skoda Fabia R5.