Last weekend saw round two of the 2012 World Rally Championship take place in Sweden. The event was based around Karlstad in the centre of the country, on appropriately ice and snow-covered gravel stages – the correct and proper conditions for the classic Scandinavian rally. The route also took in stages in neighbouring Norway, much to the obvious pleasure of the locals who lined the stages despite temperatures dropping to minus 25 degrees at times!

The art of driving fast on Rally Sweden is to use the soft snow banks lining the stages to help guide the car round corners – however, the technique is not infallible, and even rally master Sebastian Loeb lost two precious minutes when his Citroen slid into a bank of snow and got stuck. Spectators helped drag the car out, but that mistake dropped him out of contention for the win. Loeb’s team-mate, Mikko Hirvonen, battled with Fiesta driver Jari-Matti Latvala for the whole weekend, but the Ford man held on to beat his Finnish compatriot by just over 16 seconds at the end of the final stage.

Enjoy a taste of the Rally Sweden in the video above, complete with studs, jumps, bumps and inappropriate headwear!

Final Top 5 Positions:

1: Jari-Matti Latvala (Ford Fiesta) 3h18m28.3s

2: Mikko Hirvonen (Citroen DS3) +16.6s

3: Mads Ostberg (Adapta Ford Fiesta) +38.8s

4: Petter Solberg (Ford Fiesta) +1m14.3s

5: Evgeny Novikov (M-Sport Ford Fiesta) +2m41.4s

Best of Rally Live

Jonathan Moore

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1

JML doing work

2

Holy crap. Check out Hirvonen at 2:02! :o

3

BIG ARMINDO ARAÚJO!

4

Cool tyres they're using

5

I thought Citroen were using the DS3 instead of the C4. Will there be photos to follow?

6

Good vid. Hirvonen has done a very good job with the testing the DS3 on snow, the car was much faster than last year's

7

PC - They are, it is the DS3 in the video not the C4! Great footage and a great start to the season so far, it is a shame it has been overshadowed by the problems with North One so far, hope it is resolved quickly.

8

Man I love all this rally footy - thanks Speedhuntahs!

9

Thanks dev.speedhunters.com!! We like to see that more wrc are coming to your favourite site!!

PS- BIG ARMINDO ARAÚJO indeed!! ;)

10

my favorite part was the guy in the Michelin man outfit

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