WRC Rally Sweden, which has moved to Umeå about 700 km north of Värmland in Sweden, will open the Team GRX’sEmil Lindholm's and Reeta Hämäläinen’s World Rally Championship season 2022. This year, Lindholm will compete for the WRC2 World Championship points as well as the Championship for drivers under the age of 28. A year ago the Finnish duo won the World Championship bronze in the WRC3 class.

 

Lindholm will drive for the team points on the Toksport WRT team together with Nikolai Gryazin of Russia. The second team of the Toksport WRT consists of Andreas Mikkelsen and Marco Bulacia. The result of the six best World Championships rounds will be included in the final personal and team points.

 

Reached from the rally's recce, Lindholm says that the weekend's route is in a winter rally condition.

”Some roads have been driven here at local national rallies but I don’t think any of the top drivers in our class (WRC2) have competed here before. The roads vary a lot between really fast sections and then really narrow turning roads. There are long straights and driving from one intersection to another.”, Lindholm tells.

 

"A local rally active summed up the route by saying that the roads in the Umeå region are a combination of Finnish gravel roads and the narrow and technical road familiar from the Rovaniemi Arctic Rally,” Lindholm says.

 

Lindholm drove the preliminary tests for the rally over the weekend and everything is ready for the future.

 

”We know our car and the conditions are already familiar from last winter. We drive with similar settings as in Finland. The biggest difference is that the World Rally Championship is driven with a shorter stud than the Finnish Championship Rally. And because of that, we have a little less grip”, Lindholm explains.

The weekend’s forecast predicts temperatures on both sides of zero celsius.

 

”The roads turn into grooves. Two long special stages were canceled on Saturday due to a reindeer situation. Good, because we have already made contact with a reindeer and that situation at the Arctic Lapland Rally was enough”, Lindholm reminds.

 

This year, within the WRC2 class, professional and amateur drivers will compete for the same points. In Sweden, two world champions will compete in the WRC2 class: Andreas Mikkelsen and Jari Huttunen.

 

”It’s just a great to be able to drive against those drivers and measure our own level and pace on them. We will do our best, that's for sure”, Lindholm promises.

 

The World Rally Championship Sweden will start in Umeå with a ceremonial start on Thursday evening at 21:00 (UTC+2). The special stages will start on Friday at 8:50 (UTC+2). The program of the day includes seven special stages with a total length of 125.67 km.

The rally will continue on Saturday at 8:05. Exceptionally, only six special stages (82.30 km) are driven during the day as the Ötraskin EK (20.49 km), which was planned to be driven twice had to be canceled due to reindeers grazing in the area.

 

The final day of the rally will start at 6:30 (UTC+2). There are three special stages in the program (56.84 km). The first competitor will start the rally on the last special stage at 13:18 and the cars are expected on the finish line on Sunday starting from 14:33.