MOTOR SPORT

Round nine of the FIA World Rally Championship gets underway next Thursday when the Stobart VK M-Sport Ford rally team heads to Scandinavia for the Neste Oil Rally Finland.

Currently fourth in the Manufacturers’ Championship the Stobart squad will be looking for some solid results on an event all three crews are very comfortable with.

Seventh in the championship, and leading Stobart crew, Gigi Galli/Giovanni Bernacchini will be searching for a top-five result in Finland especially with their commitment on high-speed events.

Henning Solberg/Cato Menkerud will be the second nominated points scoring crew for the team and they currently lie eighth in their respective driver and co-driver championships.

Running in the third Stobart-entered Ford Focus RS WRC07 are British pair Cumbrian Matthew Wilson/Scott Martin as they take on the event together for the first time.

Contesting three Finnish national rallies back in 2005 gives them some extended knowledge of the fast flowing nature of the Scandinavian stages.

For Galli this will be his eighth attempt at Rally Finland which over the years has seen him pick up GpN class victory in 2004 and a fifth place overall back in 2006.

While he did not contest the event last year the Italian will be raring to tackle the fast, wide roads which compliment his committed and flamboyant driving style.

Solberg is the most experienced of all three Stobart drivers with eight Rally Finland event starts under his belt.

He will be looking for a solid display on a rally, close to his native Norway, which attracts numerous Norwegian spectators. This will be Solberg’s 65th WRC event start since he made his debut in the championship 10 years ago.

With over 100 entries Rally Finland is the only event in 2008 that counts as a round of the WRC, JWRC and PWRC. In total 24 special stages will be contested once again based out of Jyväskylä in the southern region of Finland.

This year the vintage event offers 340 kilometres of competitive stage distance over typically fast flowing, smooth gravel roads which have become a feature of the WRC since its inception in 1973.

It is this fast-paced action and party-like atmosphere which attracts hundreds of thousands of fans to the event each year.

Rally Finland currently holds the record for the fastest ever rally when Marcus Grönholm won the event in 2005 with an average speed of 122.86kph and the Stobart team will be relying upon the performance of their Pirelli Scorpion gravel tyres as they aim for this incredible feat.

Weather conditions in Jyväskylä are forecast to be dry with temperatures ranging between 25-30 degrees centigrade and high humidity expected.

Rally HQ and Service will again be based at Paviljonki – a versatile congress and trade fair centre in the heart of Finland. 

---

Bookmark with: what are these?