Off Road

During Stage 22 of Rally Sweden, Jari-Matti Latvala was on the brink of disaster. A punctured tyre, losing valuable seconds to the chasing Citroen of Mikko Hirvonen. Another 25 points were slipping through his fingers. But, unlike in Monte Carlo the month before, instead of throwing his car off the road, he composed himself, finished the stage, and held off his former team-mate to take victory by just under 17 seconds.

The lack of snow on the usually pure white stages of Rally Sweden casued problems up and down the field, but Jari-Matti Latvala managed his tyres the best of all the leaders and remained in the top spot at the end of the penultimate, continuing to fend off Mikko Hirvonen by 23 seconds.

Jari-Matti Latvala leads Rally Sweden for Ford at the end of the first proper day of action, 16.8 seconds ahead of former teammate Mikko Hirvonen – now in the colours of Citroen.

After former WRC promoter North One Sport went into administration, and a deal to replace them with Eurosport lead to a dead end, the FIA have publicly announced the selection process for a new promoter to be put in place.

Dani Sordo got Mini’s WRC debut on snow off to a good start, after going fastest in the short sprint through this evening’s Karlstad superspecial stage.

The BMW Group today announced they would continue their partnership with Prodrive in the World Rally Championship, however there were a raft of changes as the Mini World Rally Team lost their manufacturer status.

Rally Sweden has been a near guaranteed fixture since the sport’s inception, however there are signs that it could be the last time there is even a world championship for them to host.

After the WRC’s former promoter North One Sport went into administration, the WRC Academy support series had been thrown into a state of uncertainty. However, thanks to an agreement between the FIA and M-Sport, the single-make junior class will return for a 6 round championship at Rally Portugal in March.

Petter Solberg got himself in hot water with the Monte Carlo rally organisers, after being clocked doing 106km/h in a 50km/h zone. The offence was committed last night, as crews returned to service in Monaco following the conclusion of the day’s competitive stages.