The Stobart M-Sport Ford Rally Team will aim to open the 2010 FIA World Rally Championship season in style when it travels to Sweden next week with a former world champion in its ranks.
Regular drivers Matthew Wilson and Henning Solberg will be joined by double WRC title-winners Marcus Grönholm and Timo Rautiainen, who won the event in 2006 and 2007 when driving a Ford Focus RS WRC for the BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team. Mattias Therman will also enter under the Stobart banner. The quartet of crews will all enter using a Ford Focus RS WRC prepared by M-Sport.
Grönholm and Solberg will be the nominated points scorers for the team and given the success Stobart has enjoyed in Sweden in previous years – including a third-place podium spot courtesy of Gigi Galli in 2008 and a fourth-place from Solberg in 2007 – the squad will be determined to shine on the snowy Scandinavian stages once again.
However, many of the stages will be new to the drivers with Rally Sweden returning to the WRC calendar for the first time since 2008. Since the last event the route has been changed to include stages further north in the country in a bid to ensure there is as much snow on them as possible and make it a true ‘winter rally’.
Starting and finishing in Karlstad, with the main service park in Hagfors, the rally will take in 345 kilometres of competitive stage distance. After kicking off with the opening Super Special stage in Karlstad on the Thursday evening, crews will face a tough test on Friday as they tackle six stages of 122.54 kilometres, before returning to Karlstad again for a re-run of the Super Special. Apart from the Super Specials virtually all of the stage routes are new to the rally – meaning drivers will have to be on top form in order not to fall victim to what are expected to be extremely tough conditions on the roads.
Day two will see crews face a further eight stages, including the longest and shortest on the rally – the 24.63km Vargåsen and 1.87km Hagfors Sprint respectively. Once again the majority of the distance is new for 2010 and is likely to provide a tough testof the competitors’ abilities.
More familiar territory awaits crews who have tackled the event in the past on day three, with all five of the remaining stages incorporating routes used in 2008.
With temperatures expected to be among the coldest in 20 years and drop as low as -20C, with plenty of snow and ice on the roads, the Stobart crews will look to make the most of Pirelli’s SottoZero control snow tyre. The specially-developed compound features nearly 400 tungsten-tipped metal studs to give crews maximum traction in the sub-zero conditions.
The team’s Scandinavian contingent will be especially confident of using their experience to master the winter weather and give Stobart M-Sport Ford a blistering start to the 2010 season.
Source: http://www.rallybuzz.com