Petter heads shakedown
World Rally Champion Petter Solberg recovered from his road crash this morning (Thursday) by setting the fastest time on the shakedown for this weekend's Swedish Rally
The Norwegian set a best time of 1m65.4s over the 4km Rada stage, outpacing three-time Sweden winner Marcus Gronholm by 0.2s.
Solberg got his event off to a bad star this morning when he was involved in a minor road crash near the shakedown stage. Thankfully, nobody was hurt in the incident, and Solberg's Subaru Impreza WRC suffered only minor damage.
Rally Sweden has never been won by a non-Scandinavian driver, and the results of the shakedown stage suggests that might not change this weekend. Behind Solberg and Finn Gronholm were Swede Daniel Carlsson and Norwegian Henning Solberg (better known as Petter's brother), both driving 2003-spec private Peugeot 206s.
Belgian Francois Duval was the fastest non-Scandinavian in fifth, ahead of Ford team-mate Markko Martin.
The temperature in approaching 3 degrees, which is unusually high for this time of year. This means that much of the snow and ice that should line the stages is melting, leaving a gravel surface on the road in places. Solberg has reported that the grip levels on the stage varied enormously from corner to corner.
The Swedish Rally begins tomorrow morning at 7.22am GMT. We'll have all the latest news throughout the event on autosport.com.
Share Or Save This Story
McLaren's LMDh prototype hits the track for the first time
F1 2026 might be flawed, but Miami showed why it's also enjoyable
Alex Zanardi’s top 10 moments
Hairy finish for Canary Cobra duo as they win Equipe 6 Hours
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments