Uddeholm Rally Sweden 2006 *Spoilers*

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Rally Sweden is underway with temperatures floating around minus 11 degrees C. Conditions are said to be very slippery with a layer of ice atop the hard-packed snow.

Hirvonen and Carlsson were quick on the Shakedown but it seems Gronholm has taken the first stage by a few seconds from Loeb.

Petter Solberg's hopes of repeating last year's win seem to be dashed with a broken driveshaft early in SS1 causing him to lose 52 seconds.

Top 8 after SS1:

1. Gronholm
2. Loeb +2.8
3. Hirvonen +7.8
4. Stohl +11.2
5. Ekstrom +11.6
6. Atkinson +15.8
7. Galli +16.8
8. Radstrom +17.6
 
Petter, in a strike of cruel luck, had his car's driveshaft broken after only 7km on the first stage. Not sure if he lost power to all the wheels, but he's 53 seconds after Grönholm. Not a good start.

edit: Oops, didn't see the edit above.
 
Man poor Solberg. I get the feeling he isn't going to have a great season in terms of luck. Perhaps ita Gronholms turn to battle Loeb.
 
After SS2:

1. Gronholm
2. Loeb +19.0
3. Hirvonen +26.6
4. Ekstrom +34.2
5. Atkinson +35.9
6. Galli +36.3
7. Carlsson +38.8
8. K. Sohlberg +39.4

Gronholm wins his second stage to extend his lead over Loeb to nearly 20 seconds. Manfred Stohl loses time and drops to 9th, promoting Atkinson to 5th with Galli hot on his heels.

Petter Solberg struggles through the stage in a bid to reach the service park, but after 2 stages is now 2 minutes and 45 seconds off the lead.

The cars head to service now, but with 6 seconds covering 4th through 10th, there could be some real action this afternoon.
 
End of Leg One:

1. Gronholm
2. Loeb +10.2
3. Galli +57.5
4. Carlsson +01:03.0
5. Ekstrom +01:22.4
6. Stohl +01:28.7
7. H. Solberg +01:40.3
8. K. Sohlberg +01:48.4

After an interesting day in the Swedish forest, Marcus Gronholm leads World Champion Sebastien Loeb by just over 10 seconds. Ford's Gronholm had one scary moment on SS3, running wide on the first corner of the stage. This same corner was the demise of Subaru's Chris Atkinson when he collected a tree and broke the power steering. Atkinson managed to continue but lost around 6 minutes, capping off a terrible day for the Subaru camp.

But Gronholm's challenger didn't have a smooth run either. Loeb suffered a smashed windscreen on SS2 when he and co-driver Daniel Elena neglected to secure the bonnet after removing their lightpod.

There's a close battle for the minor spots, with Gigi Galli and Daniel Carlsson, both in Mitsubishi Lancers, in a fight for 3rd. While DTM star Mattias Ekstrom looks set to repeat his good result of 2005 for Skoda, he currently lies in 5th.

The only major retirement today was the Ford of Mikko Hirvonen. He stopped with an overheating engine. The Subarus of Solberg and Atkinson are continuing, but they are well down the field in 21st and 26th respectively.
 
Shame about Hirvonen, he appeared to be doing well.

Thanks for the updates VTRacing 👍
 
What is going on?! Gronholm is actually beating Loeb? In a real race with no 5 minute time penalties to Loeb? This is awesome! I've been waiting for this. It's been a long time since Finns were actually able to compete with Loeb and Citroen. Now let's just hope that Ford holds until the end.
And yeah, it was a shame Mikko's Ford broke. Damn waterpump belt :ouch:
 
End of Leg Two:

1. Gronholm
2. Loeb +25.1
3. Carlsson +02:32.7
4. Galli +02:33.0
5. Ekstrom +03:28.1
6. Tuohino +03:28.2
7. Radstrom +04:26.5
8. H. Solberg +05:14.6


Marcus Gronholm extended his lead on Day Two of the Uddeholm Swedish Rally, winning 5 of the 7 stages today. However, the margin of 25 seconds to Sebastien Loeb is not enough for the Finn to sleep comfortably before Leg 3.

There were strong battles throughout the field on the second day, which remained clear and very cold. Temperatures ranged from -18C up to a balmy -8C by the end of the day.

In the battle of the two Mitsubishi drivers, Daniel Carlsson took over 3rd on the first stage of the day. Galli hit back on the next to take a 6 second advantage, but it's Carlsson who will have a slender lead after passing the Italian on SS11.

Similarly, the battle between Janne Tuohino and DTM star Mattias Ekstrom for 5th place has been very close. Ekstrom, in the Red Bull Skoda, will have the narrowest of margins going into Leg 3.

And it was a bad day for the OMV Peugeot Norway Team. Drivers Manfred Stohl and Henning Solberg were comfortably in the top 6 until stage 11. Stohl left the road and got stuck in a ditch, while Solberg rolled his Peugeot 307. The windscreen smashed in the accident filling the car with snow as it slid down the road on its roof. Both he and his co-driver were well-chilled by the time they reached service. But he managed to continue and remains in the points.

Bad news also for Kristian Sohlberg. Lying 7th at the end of today's stages, an engine failure on the way back to parc ferme meant retirement.

There are 6 stages tomorrow totalling 90 competitive kilometres.
 
VTRacing
...and it was a bad day for the OMV Peugeot Norway Team. Drivers Manfred Stohl and Henning Solberg were comfortably in the top 6 until stage 11. Stohl left the road and got stuck in a ditch, while Solberg rolled his Peugeot 307. The windscreen smashed in the accident filling the car with snow as it slid down the road on its roof. Both he and his co-driver were well-chilled by the time they reached service. But he managed to continue and remains in the points.
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Get this. Stohl was attempting to keep up speed by sliding on the snow-walls, but in one particular spot, the snow was gone. The snow he was counting on support from, was in fact on the road to service in his team-mate's car!
 
Mmm, the new Focus looks even better than it did when the pics were first posted. :D

*edit* Haha, that 307 roll was great, I love how it looks like someone just fired a snow-blower into the car as they slid. :lol:
 
Final Results:

1. Gronholm
2. Loeb +30.9
3. Carlsson +02:56.8
4. Galli +03:03.8
5. Radstrom +05:53.3
6. Katajamaki +07:34.8
7. Pons +08:35.6
8. H. Solberg +09:01.5

Marcus Gronholm has made a perfect start to the 2006 WRC by adding the Swedish Rally to his Monte Carlo victory. The Finnish driver, with co-driver Timo Rautianen, led from start to finish taking the win by just over 30 seconds to current World Champion Sebastien Loeb.

It wasn't all plain sailing though, with Loeb closing to within 15 seconds as Gronholm was slowed by a hydraulic problem in the early stages today. This forced him to use the manual shift rather than the paddle behind the wheel, and also affected the performance of the centre differential in his Focus WRC. After fixing the problem at service, Gronholm won the final 3 stages to guarantee his win.

The battle for 3rd place was even tougher, with Gigi Galli and Daniel Carlsson trading the place through every stage except the last today. Finally the local hero Carlsson managed to gap the Italian and took 3rd by 7 seconds.

Not so lucky was another Swede, Mattias Ekstrom, who suffered electrical problems on the transport to the first stage before going off the road and retiring from 5th place.

Henning Solberg's charge back up the leaderboard after yesterday's roll was slowed by a broken wheel, which dropped him from 7th to 10th. But the elder Solberg brother fought back over the closing stages to take a hard-fought 8th.

Janne Tuohino had a heartbreaking loss of oil pressure late in the rally to drop from the 5th place he inherited from Ekstrom. He managed to finish, but was well down in 10th position. This promoted a very surprised Thomas Radstrom to 5th in a privately entered Subaru. Filling out the other positions were Kosti Katajamaki in the VK Stobart Focus, taking 6th after a solid event, and Loeb's Kronos teammate Xevi Pons in 7th with the Xsara.

Petter Solberg's woeful event continued. First he had a problem with snow being shoveled onto the windscreen by the front spoiler. Then, on the second-last stage his Subaru stalled on the line and would not restart. After 10 minutes the crew located the fault with the starter motor and got going but, as they had not moved from the start line within the allowed 20 seconds, they were eventually excluded from the rally.

There was some light at the end of the Swedish Rally tunnel for Subaru though, with Australian Chris Atkinson taking 3 manufacturers points for finishing 11th after a Day 1 off-road excursion saw him fall to 32nd place.

Next, the WRC travels to the first gravel rally of the year in Mexico. Former World Champion Petter Solberg will be hoping to kick-start his title challenge, while Marcus Gronholm will be hoping his dream run with Ford can continue just a little longer.
 
Yes, it was quite funny to see first Carlsson ahead, then Galli. Apparently for virtually 2 days of the rally they had never been more than 2.4 seconds apart!

It would be interesting to see what a top-flight driver could do with the Mitsubishi WRC as well. I think it's better than it gets credit for. Such a shame they couldn't find the money for a proper program this year.

Also I didn't realise until I watched the coverage that Stohl had gone off on the same corner as Henning Solberg. Solberg's rolling 307 had removed the snowbank (by pretty much filling the car with it) that Stohl was needing to rely on to get around the corner. (This is what Freddie alluded to above).

A shame for Atkinson too, one small mistake (on the same corner that Gronholm had a moment) ruined what would have been a top 3-4-5 finish. Not bad for only his second ever rally on snow.

If you have any feedback or comments about my summaries, please let me know. I will try and put something together for each event from here on.
 
VTRacing
If you have any feedback or comments about my summaries, please let me know. I will try and put something together for each event from here on.
Click to expand...
It's great man!! keep it up! 👍
You write like you were there, and with some humur too... now that it needs a damn log in to read news in wrc.com, it's better to come here as is usually quicker (and I can read about GT4 too hehe).

Good to see Marcus doing so well again and Loeb is quick even in a new team. But I really would like to see Petter on top again...
 
dkstz
It's great man!! keep it up! 👍
You write like you were there, and with some humur too...

Good to see Marcus doing so well again and Loeb is quick even in a new team. But I really would like to see Petter on top again...
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Thanks, I usually like to watch the times come through live if I'm online (just to see how Atkinson is doing). Some of the other stuff I pick up from rally radio (who actually are there) and from the end of leg summaries on other websites.

Marcus seems to have a new lease on life now that he's with Ford, driving the anchor that was the 307 depressed him a bit I reckon. I would say that this year is probably his last realistic chance to win the championship again now that he's nearing 40. And the Ford is probably the best car this year.

Petter's had some bad luck over the last few rallies, but I think he's also trying a bit too hard on occasion. I felt last year that he needed to slow down to go faster. I know that sounds strange, but if he would relax and get into a rhythm he might end up setting faster times with fewer risks.
 
VTRacing
If you have any feedback or comments about my summaries, please let me know. I will try and put something together for each event from here on.
Click to expand...

They are brilliant:tup: Especially with lack of coverage over here!
 
Much appreciated since we no longer get it here either.
Thanks speedvision or whatever your name is, I hope you choke on a NASCAR.
 
It was a great rally, good to see Mitsubishi's back up there.
 
That's a bugger. I bet Dave Richards and ISC are a bit annoyed at that state of affairs. Not to mention the fans of WRC in the US...
 
Yeah... but I wonder if OLN will be covering the series down the road. They seem to have taken a much bigger step in covering sports this year, starting with the NHL and moving onto A1GP and the Dakar Rally. It'd be great to get WRC back on American television.


I was hoping Ekstrom would do well. I watched reruns of last year's DTM on Speed and I was happily surprised that he's into rallying as well. It's nice to see drivers today take on all forms of motorsport, much like it was in the old days.
 
Im sooooo happy that the 2 EVOS are doing well...go MITSU!!!!!
Its crazy how Galli and Carlsson just kept switching spots back and forth lol. Great Rally!
 

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