The World Rally Championship will expand to 12 Rally1 cars for the second round of the season in Sweden next month.
The release of the entry list for the February 13-16 event marks the largest Rally1 entry since Rally Catalunya in 2022, where 12 top-flight cars were also entered.
Privateers Lorenzo Bertelli and Jordan Serderidis will field the entry at Rally Sweden, with the former driving a rented Toyota GR Yaris and the latter driving the fourth M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1.
Bertelli made his last WRC outing in Sweden last year driving a GR Yaris, while Serderidis competed in 2024 WRC rounds in Central Europe, Greece and Kenya driving a Ford Puma.
Earlier this week, it was announced Top-class WRC rising star Martins Cesc will begin a six-round partial program with M-Sport in Sweden after a trio of impressive performances last season.
Cesc will be joined by M-Sport full-time drivers Grégoire Munster and Josh McErlean in Rally to complete the British team’s line-up.
The Factory Toyota Team will field four GR Yaris Rally1 entries headed by two-time World Champion Calle Rovanperä, joined by Elfyn Evans and Takamoto Katsuta. All three have been registered to score manufacturer points, while the fourth GR Yaris will be driven by newly signed Sami Pazarri under the marque’s effective ‘B’ team umbrella.
Hyundai will field its three full-time entries in reigning world champion Thierry Neuville, Ott Tänak and new recruit Adrien Fourmaux.
Jordan Serderidis, Frédéric Michelotto, M-Sport Ford World Rally Team Ford Puma Rally1
Photo by: M-Sport
Sweden will also mark the first WRC2 points-scoring round for Oliver Solberg on his new Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 powered by Printsport.
Meanwhile 2017 WRC2 champion Pontus Tidemand, who enjoyed some top-level fixtures with M-Sport in 2019, returns to the championship after almost five years away in a Skoda Fabia RS Rally 2.
Last year’s Junior WRC champion Romet Jurgensen will then make his WRC2 debut Earning a second class class graduation through the FIA’s Rally Star program,
Sweden will also feature a 12-car field for the first round of the Junior WRC Championship WRC Women’s Driver Program Shootout participants Lisia Baudet and Claire Schönborn,
in this article
Be the first to know and subscribe for real-time news email updates on these topics
Subscribe to news alerts