The festivities began on Thursday evening with a well-attended opening ceremony in central Karlstad under beautiful May skies. Shortly after, the brand-new SS1 Br\u00e5teb\u00e4cken was run, where Romania\u2019s Simone Tempestini set the fastest ERC time. But the absolute fastest overall were local favourites Dennis R\u00e5dstr\u00f6m and Sunniva Rudi from Torsby, competing in the Swedish Championship, making the perfect start to their home rally.<\/p>\n
Friday featured eight special stages, and rain quickly became a factor in the morning. Local driver Isak Reiersen coped best with the wet conditions, winning both SS2 Gr\u00f6nlund 1 and SS3 V\u00e4rmskog 1. However, it was Norwegian Eyvind Brynildsen who took control on SS4 Gr\u00f6nlund 2, climbing into the overall lead.<\/p>\n
The day turned into an intense Nordic battle between Brynildsen, Reiersen, Mads \u00d8stberg and Frank Tore Larsen. But the drama didn\u2019t stop there \u2013 \u00d8stberg suffered a puncture on SS8, losing nearly 40 seconds.<\/p>\n
On the second run of Colins (SS9), a sudden downpour impacted many of the top runners. Reiersen, Brynildsen and Larsen all lost time to Finland\u2019s Roope Korhonen, who climbed into third overall.<\/p>\n
Several incidents occurred throughout the day. Max McRae, Jos Verstappen and Philip Allen all retired after going off the road.<\/p>\n
The longest flight over the legendary Colin\u2019s Crest came from Mads \u00d8stberg, who jumped a spectacular 43 metres \u2013 the longest of the rally this year.<\/p>\n
Heading into Saturday\u2019s final leg, Toyota-driver Eyvind Brynildsen and co-driver J\u00f8rn Listerud lead the rally, just 5.1 seconds ahead of Swedish talent Isak Reiersen and co-driver Stefan Gustavsson. The fight for third is tight, with only 1.8 seconds separating Roope Korhonen and Frank Tore Larsen.<\/p>\n
\u2013 There was so much rain, especially in the middle of the stage \u2013 it was pouring and I could barely see. It was extremely slippery, but we had a lot of fun and really tried to push. I went for the jump record, but I wasn\u2019t brave enough and couldn\u2019t carry enough speed into the last few corners. It\u2019s been a fantastic day and I\u2019ve really enjoyed myself. What a great rally! Who would\u2019ve believed this? I could barely believe it myself. But there\u2019s still a long day ahead tomorrow,<\/i> said Eyvind Brynildsen.<\/p>\n
Last year\u2019s junior winner Mille Johansson and Johan Gr\u00f6nvall are battling with ERC leader Miko Marczyk for sixth place.<\/p>\n
Top 10 \u2013 FIA ERC standings after SS9:<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n In ERC3, Tymoteusz Abramowski leads fellow Polish driver Adrian Rze\u017anik.<\/p>\n Saturday\u2019s route heads east from Karlstad, with stages including \u00c4ngeb\u00e4ckstorp and the new Bjurerud stage. Followed with the 20 km Royal Forest and the final Power Stage in \u00d6lme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The festivities began on Thursday evening with a well-attended opening ceremony in central Karlstad under beautiful May skies. Shortly after, the brand-new SS1 Br\u00e5teb\u00e4cken was run, where Romania\u2019s Simone Tempestini set the fastest ERC time. But the absolute fastest overall were local favourites Dennis R\u00e5dstr\u00f6m and Sunniva Rudi from Torsby, competing in the Swedish Championship, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":3828,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-okategoriserad"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n