With Sweden just days away, the WRC elite are preparing

While the specter of Monte Carlo still looms large, let's not forget that the World Rally Championship will return next week for the Rally Sweden. After a first event marked by snow and terribly tricky weather conditions, another major challenge awaits the participating crews. Let's talk about the weather forecast for Umeå next week: unsurprisingly, it's going to be cold. According to various sources, temperatures are expected to range between -20°C and -25°C for the lowest readings, and between -10°C and -15°C for the highest. However, one unknown remains, as some reports indicate that the ice on the rally stages isn't particularly thick. The recent low temperatures haven't helped matters, and the concern now is that the studs, more numerous on the Swedish Rally tires than on those of Monte Carlo, could tear up too much of the ice and create ruts. This could have significant consequences.

Toyota is already ready to fight

Given the extensive discussion surrounding tires at Monte Carlo, it's crucial to avoid a recurrence of the debates from late January. Last year, in its debut as the sole tire supplier in Scandinavia, Hankook "took advantage" of the frozen Swedish roads to highlight the performance shortcomings of its studded tires. Considering the aforementioned information, we have every right to question this... In any case, the teams were obviously testing in recent weeks: barely had the Monte Carlo Rally finished when Oliver Solberg and Toyota were already in action not far from the site of the first rally of the season, before Elfyn Evans participated last week in the Arctic Lapland Rally, which served as a major full-scale test session before the Swedish round. The Welshman won the event, finishing nearly four minutes ahead of his nearest rival.

 

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This week, Sami Pajari and Oliver Solberg also took turns driving the GR Yaris Rally1 in ideal, snowy, and cold conditions. On Wednesday, Takamoto Katsuta also drove the car. After several days competing in Rally2, the 2024 WRC2 World Champion and his 2025 successor toured Toyota's regular test base in Finland before heading to Sweden.

Rally Sweden: Will Lappi be ready?

Last week, while Evans was at the start of the Arctic Lapland Rally, the key players of Hyundai Motorsport teams were also ready to go. Esapekka Lappi, in particular, was entered in a Škoda Fabia RS Rally2, the car with which he will compete in the entire Finnish Rally Championship, of which he is the reigning champion. However, questions remain about the quality of the Finn's preparation for his return to the World Rally Championship: having not competed in a Rally1 car since 2024, which, incidentally, was not a non-hybrid model, and having used Pirelli tires last week in this preparatory rally—quite different from the Hankooks—there is legitimate concern about a repeat of the "Hayden Paddon episode" at Monte Carlo. Nevertheless, Esapekka Lappi was able to drive his new car the day after the Arctic Lapland Rally on the Finnish snow. Will this one day of testing with the car and the Hankook tires, which he was using for the first time, be enough?

 

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At Hyundai and M-Sport, they are finalizing the last details.

Before the Finn, it was first Thierry Neuville, the first of the squad, to take the wheel of the i20N Rally1 on the Swedish snow, then Adrien fourmaux to complete this fine-tuning work. From the side of M-Sport Ford is also taking advantage of the current week to fine-tune the final preparations for a rally that Jon Armstrong and Josh McErlean will rediscover, as well as their weekend teammate Mārtiņš Sesks.

 

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Lorenzo Bertelli, on the other hand, will have to improvise without having been able to benefit from these tests: the Italian, heir to the Prada fashion house, will be back in WRC Two years after his last appearance behind the wheel of the Toyota, then equipped with the hybrid, next week. He had skipped Sweden last year at the last minute for professional reasons, even though he was competing under the Japanese team's banner.