WRC: Rally Sweden to run with new itinerary

Rally Sweden will run with a revised itinerary and including 12 of the planned 21 stages, having been threatened with cancellation due to warm weather conditions.

The rally organizers put a plan to the FIA, WRC Promoter and the World Rally Championship teams on Monday morning outlining the revised route and this has been accepted. Official confirmation of the new route will come from a press conference in Karlstad today.

The event will now start on Friday morning, with no superspecial in Karlstad on Thursday night. The recce is understood to be moved to Wednesday, Thursday and shakedown has been canceled.

All of the Friday morning stages across the Norwegian border will run bar Kirkenaer. The Rammen stage will be skipped on Saturday morning, but run in the afternoon. Fredriksberg will run in the morning and be dropped for the afternoon. Vargasen – which includes the Colin's Crest jump – is still scheduled to run twice.

Sunday's first loop is canceled, meaning just Lesjofors and Varmullsasen will take place, the latter running as the powerstage.

All of the above is still entirely dependent on the weather getting considerably colder in the coming days. Temperatures of around 14 degrees are expected in the second half of the week.

"The itinerary is workable, providing we get that cold weather," a source inside the event said. "When the freeze comes, the roads are so wet, minus 10 will freeze them really hard and provide a good ice base.

"OK, there won't be the snowbanks, but we would have a rally."

Originally on Autosport.com