The schedule for the 2023 Rally Sweden is now officially published by the event organizer, the rally is set to host round two of the FIA World Rally Championship and starts on Thursday 9 February with the Håkmark Shakedown run in the morning, which is a complete new stage for the rally. the shakedown measures 5.47 kilometers.
On Thursday evening, the actual rally starts with the Umeå Sprint stage, which is just over five kilometers long and is driven in the foothills of the center of Umeå. Each of the four rally days does end in the rally’s new central city, Umeå. Friday is the first full day of rallying, where the stages of Brattby, Sarsjöliden, and Botsmark are run twice with the familiar Umeå Sprint from Thursday rounding up the day. Among the special stages on Friday, the 25.76-kilometer-long Botsmark is a new special stage, while Brattby and Sarsjöliden are already familiar from this year.
On Saturday, there will also be a new special stage called Norrby. Saturday’s other two forest stages are Kamsjön and Sävar which will be run twice as well. In the evening, a stage called Umeå 1 will be run again in the city center and the 11-kilometer stage also serves as Sunday’s Power Stage. There are only three stages on the program on Sunday, but the 26.48-kilometer long Västervik, which is run twice, will certainly offer a real challenge to the drivers.
The calendar for the 2023 WRC season has not yet been confirmed but it is known that the season will start in January with Rallye Monte-Carlo and the organizers of Rally Mexico have also confirmed the rally will return there for round three in March.
