In the challenging Swedish Rally, the only FIA World Rally Championship event held on snow, six crews driving Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 cars finished in the top ten of the WRC2 category. The dominance of Nordic drivers in this event was confirmed by Mikko Heikkilä, who secured third place with a Škoda.
A total of eleven crews entered the Swedish Rally with Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 cars, and ten of them successfully reached the finish line. Six of these crews made it into the points-scoring top ten, while young Czech driver Filip Kohn narrowly missed out. Throughout the rally, the Škoda crews managed to increase their pace, with five of them in the top ten after Friday’s stages. At that point, the best-placed crew, Mikko Heikkilä and Kristian Temonen, held fourth place.
However, on Saturday, Heikkilä and Temonen increased their pace, making a crucial move toward their final podium position.
“The right feeling is back,” Heikkilä beamed at the end of Saturday’s stages. “The car is much better than yesterday thanks to the service team, and that’s a great feeling.”
The crew of TGS Worldwide continued their strong performance on Sunday, securing third place in the overall WRC2 standings and earning fifteen points in the championship.
This Finnish crew was followed by another pair of Finns in the Škoda Fabia RS Rally2, Lauri Joona and Samu Vaaleri from the MS Munaretto team. Fifth place in the WRC2 category went to the Swedish-flagged pairing of Isak Reiersen and Stefan Gustavsson (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 of JC Raceteknik team).
A remarkable performance came from the Paraguayan-Italian crew Fabrizio Zaldivar and Marcelo Der Ohannesian of the Toksport WRT team and deserves great recognition. They finished sixth in the WRC2 category, making them the highest-placed non-Scandinavian crew. They even outperformed a surprising returnee to rallying – former WRC2 world champion Pontus Tidemand. The Swede, who won the 2017 WRC2 title with a factory Škoda and left the championship in 2020, finished eighth. He made his comeback in a Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 from JC Raceteknik alongside Norwegian co-driver Jørgen Eriksen.
The WRC2 top ten was completed by the Mexican-Spanish duo Alejandro Mauro and Adrián Pérez from the VP Garage/MAPO Motorsport team.
Škoda drivers also excelled in the WRC Masters Cup, a category for drivers over 50 years of age. Spanish crew Alexander Villanueva and Alberto Chamorro from Mapo Motorsport took the victory, while Mexican driver Miguel Granados, alongside his Spanish co-driver Marc Martí from VP Garage, finished third in the category.
Speed was also demonstrated throughout the rally by the Estonian crew Robert Virves and Jakko Viilo. Although they were not competing for WRC2 points, they were the fastest Škoda crew for most of the rally. The RaceSeven team duo was third in the RC2 class before the final stage, but a costly time loss due to getting stuck in a snowbank during the penultimate stage pushed them down to fifteenth place in RC2.
