Strong finish in Rally Sweden by Mikkelsen

This year Rally Sweden was a bit shorter than usual. Mild weather and rain had destroyed the winter roads and a number of stages had to be cancelled. Both the organizers and the competitors made the best out of it, but for Andreas Mikkelsen and his co-driver Anders Jæger, things didn’t go as expected.

“We hoped to be able to fight for the victory, but we made too many mistakes” says the 26-year-old.

It all began well on Friday and Andreas knew already from start that he wanted to fight the current world champion Sebastien Ogier for the win. Unfortunately he had an off and a spin later in the day and had to realize that it would be difficult to reach the top. Instead he focused on making it to the podium. But with snow on the roads on Saturday, also that became a tough challenge. As car number two on the road, he had to clean the road for the cars behind him.

“With our early start position, I knew we had to push hard to make it onto the podium. We started very well on Saturday, but on the Rämmen stage, we had a note that was too positive. We went off the road and had to find a place to turn the car around. We lost a lot of time and that’s when I realized that reaching the podium might be too difficult for us and chose to focus on securing fourth place” he says.

With all that had happened, the goal was to finish the weekend in the best way possible and get some bonus points by being in the top three on the last stage. Andreas set a second fastest time and got the valuable championship points that he was looking for.

“The last stage was not perfect. I made a mistake, lost speed and that cost me time. But it was important to get two extra points and I can without a doubt say that this year’s Power Stage was better than last year’s” says Andreas with a smile. Last year he was in the lead of Rally Sweden ahead of the last stage and almost had the victory in his hands – until he went off the road and had to get help from spectators to get the car back on the road. Still he finished third, while this year he dropped to fourth.

“To sum up the rally, I can say that I’m happy with fourth place as the event turned out as it did. I had obviously hoped for a better result, but Friday basically ruined my chances for a podium finish. Although this was a different event, where a bunch of stages had to be cancelled, I’d like to compliment the organizers for what they accomplished” says Andreas, who is still in second place in the overall WRC standings.

Rally Sweden was also another confirmation that his new co-driver Anders Jæger is the right man for the job.

“Even though Anders got a problem with his eyes yesterday morning, he has read the pacenotes in a great way. I really admire the work he has put in on such a short time, says Andreas.