Victory for Tidemand at the Swedish Rally Championship season finale

Swedish rally ace Pontus Tidemand barely came home from the German WRC event with his title until he started working towards his next start. With some free time on his hands before his next official commitment, he realized he had the chance to participate at this year’s Swedish Rally Championship finale and with the support from his local partners, it was made possible.

“The WRC is where you want to be in order to reach your big goal, but there will always be something special about competing in front of your home crowd” said Pontus.

In addition to the final fight for the championship positions, another fight – the one between Pontus and P-G Andersson – attracted a big crowd. Already on Friday’s three first stages in rain and darkness, spectators lined up along the road. Pontus and his co-driver Jonas Andersson set the fastest time in their SKODA Fabia R5 on the opening street stage, but P-G eventually got a small advantage overnight.
On Saturday morning, Pontus and Jonas found the rhythm and the right setup on the car and charged for a proper attack when the ongoing fight came to an abrupt end as P-G was forced to retire on the fifth stage of the rally.

“Very sad” said Pontus. “P-G did a great job and was so far faster than us. It would have been fun to battle it out all the way to the finish line and see who was the quickest one in the end.”

But Pontus and Jonas did not change their strategy, instead they continued on the wet surface in full speed. Four stages later, they secured the victory at the Swedish Rally Championship finale, East Sweden Rally, just like they did last year at Rally Uppsala.

“It was very slippery and not easy to drive, but that suited us really well since we are practicing for Wales Rally GB. We didn’t hold back, we did what we could to get maximum out of the event, both for the practice and to give the spectators who came out despite the rain a good show. It was a bummer that we missed out on the fight, but it was pure joy to be here. Big thanks to the team for making sure our car was perfect. All in all a great weekend” said Pontus.

Final results East Sweden Rally 2017
Overall
1. Pontus Tidemand 1.15.08,6
2. Jacob Jansson +2.25,1
3. Andreas Persson +4.47,2
4. Emil Karlsson +5.17,9
5. Kristian Johansson +5.52,7