Championship weekend for Rally Sweden drivers

Upcoming weekend most of the Swedish and Norwegian Rally Sweden-drivers are competing at home. The second round of the Norwegian championship is decided as well as the 2012 premiere of the Swedish championship.

Rally Sweden is approaching and all the notified drivers are in the midst of their preparations. The Swedish and Norwegian drivers and co-drivers are given the opportunity to test in race pace this weekend.

SM premiere Rally Uppsala runs Friday and Saturday with four World Championship riders on the starting line. Applications is namely Pontus Tidemand, (pictured), Hans-Erik Weng, Andreas Thelaus and Jimmie Walfridsson.

For Tidemand, reigning Swedish champion, will be the first start in his new Skoda Fabia S2000, the car in which Andreas Mikkelsen drove, and won, the norwegian NM-premiere.

– Hopefully it’s a lucky car for me aswell, says Tidemand, who look forward to the start in Uppsala on Friday night.

– It will be fun to run in SM again and I expect that it, as usual, will be a tough battle for wins and points.

Richard Göransson, who also saw Rally Uppsala as a possible upload contest for Rally Sweden, however, will not start. He chooses instead to run Rally Elverum in his Group N Mitsubishi on 28th of January.

– There are a lot of snow and the roads are in roughly the same area as Rally Sweden. We see this rally as the best possible preparation for Rally Sweden in two weeks, says team manager Frederick Eljas.

Richard himself put it this way before starting:

– Sure it would have been fun to measure myself against the Swedish elite again, but the Norwegians will offer at least as good resistance. It should also be fun to drive rally outside Sweden for the first time, but the main goal is to continue developing and perfecting the work between me and my fantastic co-driver Anders Fredriksson.

While Mads Ostberg, Marius Aasen, Eyvind Brynildsen, Anders Grondal, Sten-Erik Brynildsen, Steve Røkland and Frank Tore Larsen – all in the entry list for Rally Sweden – will be there in the second round of the Norwegian championship.