The new Citroën DS3 S1600

This is Citroën's new car for World Rally Championship 2011 season, the DS3 S1600.

Sporting the 1600cc naturally aspirated engine and front wheel drive for S1600 homologation, it will be fitted with a turbocharger and 4 wheel drive for WRC.
The article was released in a French magazine called Echappement. I believe the car is still under development but testing with Dani Sordo and Sebastien Loeb will begin soon.

BP Ford Fiesta S2000 Test Mikko Hirvonen

Mikko was testing the new Fiesta for the coming Monte Carlo rally.

Arctic Lapland Rally, China and others.

I believe many of you have heard that Kimi Räikkönen will participate Arctic Lapland Rally in January with Citroën's WRCar. Now news have come up that Heikki Kovalainen will do this too.

Kovalainen is driving for Lotus in the 2010 Formula 1 season and Lotus has been owned by Proton for a while, so its not a surprise that Heikki will participate with Proton's Satria Neo S2000 rally car, that'll make its WRC debut in 2010 aswell, in Lapland.

Surely Arctic Lapland rally will prove to be quite exciting rally for both the teams and spectators.

Last week, Jussi Välimäki drove out and crashed into a rock in the Longyou rally in China. Jussi himself was unscathed, but his co-driver Marko Sallinen suffered hair fractures in his ribs.

But as of now, both are healthy and will participate in the Guizhou Bailing rally that will end the season in China. Also participating this rally is another finn, Juha Salo with his co-driver Mika Stenberg.

And for the end, Antero Visaheimo made a great piece for Ralli.net.


World Opening night, Karlstad, Sweden

See you after Christmas, until then, happy holidays!

Bosse participating WRC Sweden

Again, I am late with these news, but I only update my blog on saturdays, please bear with me.

So Marcus Grönholm, true to his earlier words, is participating in WRC rallies next year aswell, and will start off with Sweden in his fellow Finn's, Mattias Thermann's, team Therminator. Both will be driving Ford Focus WRCs, and I hope best to both men and quite likely they will easily find sponsors with Bosse in the team and hopefully they will be able to participate in other coming WRC rallies aswell, at least Neste Oil Rally Finland.

Some new and old drivers, also Finland!

As most of you might have heard, Kimi Räikkönen's deal with Citroën is now official. He'll be a partner to Sebastien Ogier in Citroën's junior team and he'll drive all 12 rallies on the schedule. Rumor also has it that he will be participating Arctic Lapland Rally in January with the Citroën C4 WRC too.

Mikko Hirvonen was confirmed for driving the new Ford Fiesta S2000 in the up coming Monte Carlo Rally. Other choices included Markko Märtin, which would have been a nice welcome back for him.

Citroën's first team with Sebastien Loeb and Daniel Sordo will be driving either Citroën's new S2000 car based on the C3 or the C4 WRC10. This hasn't been confirmed as of yet.

And since this entry would otherwise be rather short, I'm going to tell you a bit about my schedule for the coming year.

I will be attending ABC-Ralli at Kouvola and Riihimäki-ralli at Riihimäki in January, unfortunately the long distance to Rovaniemi prohibits me from going to see Räikkönen there, if the rumors keep true.

ABC-Ralli is a miniature rally, having only 3 special stages in about 30 kilometer lenght, I believe there will be about 100-200 participants with cars ranging from Rally Trophy to Group N.

Riihimäki-ralli is a week later, its a full F-Cup rally, so about 8 special stages and around 60-100 kilometers. Since its F-Cup, there will be mostly Group F cars, but I believe they have class for older 4WD cars as well, so Group N, Group A and WRC wouldn't be surprising.

See you there!