https://www.dirtfish.com/rally/wrc/toyotas-new-heroes-made-short-sweden-a-classic/

I have to say this was a real unexpected thriller.A worrying lack of snow saw the number of stages run halved, and actually Saturday was a rerun of Friday too. But that was balanced by the toughness of the conditions and the constant change in the state of the roads.

In the end, it turned out to be one of the most exciting and nail-biting wrc events I’ve followed. Not to mention our lad Elfyn is really coming of age at Toyota. He showed some real grit to hold his nerve to the end. I think we could see a four way fight here, maybe five way if young Rovanpera can keep this level of progress up. His first podium at the age of 19, in his second event in the top formula. That’s mad, but probably somewhat helped by the FIA decision to provide new tyres after every stage, to preserve studs. Ogier reckons he suffered from his tendency to be gentle on the tyres because of that; whereas the young guns could get away with trashing them.

Sidenote: Worth following Dirtfish. They’ve hired Colin Clark, who was excellent at WRC.com and is widely regarded as the Murray Walker of rally these days.; and David Evans who was a brilliant journalist for Motorsport News Network (Autosport etc. ) for decades. Since they hired those two over xmas, the site has been absolutely churning out quality rally content, as has their youtube channel.

There’s interesting rumblings that this is a move to build a presence in the USA to bring a WRC event there; most likely a replacement for Sweden, which is looking less wintry every year unfortunately.