WRC Rally Sweden 2025: Preview

WRC Rally Sweden 2025: Preview

12th February 2025 0 By Kamron Kent

The World Rally Championship revs back into action this weekend as the sport heads to Scandinavia for the WRC Rally Sweden. 

Feature image credit: Jaanus Ree / Red Bull Content Pool

Toyota’s Elfyn Evans is set to open up Rally Sweden on Friday morning, after the singular Thursday test, as the reigning championship leader, Sebastien Ogier, misses out on the event due to his part-time schedule. 

Defending champions, Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe will be hoping for a better weekend in the wintery region of Umeå as they look to bounce back after a tricky season opener in Rallye Monte Carlo. 

Evans to open the road

With Evans finishing runner-up in Monte, behind Ogier, he becomes the net-championship leader going into the event and will have the challenge to open the road.

The Welshman on his first runs will be potentially hindered by fresh snow lying on the icy surface, affecting Hankook’s i*pike studs from gripping the road. However, if there is no fresh snow and it’s just ice the Briton will have a more level playing field with those behind.

“It’s an event that’s always a lot of fun to drive with the stages being as fast as they are,” said Evans ahead of Rally Sweden. 

“Opening the road could make for a difficult start to the weekend if there’s a lot of fresh snow like last year. On the other hand, if it’s icy, it could play into our hands; we’ll be giving it our all regardless.”

Toyota is expecting this as the opening challenge for Evans but will still be hoping to fight for the win by the power stage on Sunday.

Neuville looking for a bounce-back

Hyundai’s reigning world champion will hope for better fortunes in Sweden this weekend after a troubled time in Monte Carlo as the Belgian crew continues to fight for their title.

Last time out, in Monte, Neuville had two moments in the same stage in the morning and afternoon loops – SS6 and SS9 – which put him and his co-driver, Martijn Wydaeghe on the backfoot for the remainder of the weekend. By the end of the season opener, he recovered to fifth thanks to crashes from Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta and Sami Pajari.

Due to his finishing position, he will be amongst the mid-pack of runners on the first runs on Friday and will look to benefit from the position as the tests will be cleaner, thanks to cars going ahead of them.

Although Neuville states he will fight for a podium position, the defending world champion is aiming for a ‘clean haul’ of points to maximise his weekend. 

“We want to take good points home from the event, and we are determined to be fighting for a podium finish,” said Neuville. “More important to us than winning is a clean points haul for the championship, and we want to maximise this on Sunday.”

Neuville and Wydaeghe will also look to benefit from the new ‘redeveloped’ car which Hyundai is bringing to the event.

Itinerary

Four days line up the action with Thursday being the shortest with one stage followed by Friday (three stages). Both Friday and Saturday have seven stages to be completed, making the overall total 18 stages over the weekend. 

The Umeå Sprint kicks off the action with an appetising 5.16km test on Thursday before the full weekend kicks off with the Bygdsiljum 1 test on Friday morning. 

The opening Friday stage stands as the longest test of the day at 28.27km. This will be closed up with another Umeå Sprint on SS8. 

Vannas 1 starts the action on the penultimate day, Saturday, and stages 11 and 15 – the last of the morning and afternoon loops – of Kolksele will be the day’s longest course at 16.06km each before finishing off with a 10.8km Umeå test which will make up the Power stage on Sunday.

Sunday sees back-to-back stages of Vastervik, a lengthy 29.35km test – the longest of the weekend – before completing the event with the second Umea stage. 

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Hi, I'm Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion. I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I've loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.

CategoryNews Rallying WRC
TagsHyundai M-Sport Ford Rally Sweden Rallying Sweden Toyota World Rally Championship WRC

About the author

Hi, I'm Kamron. I created ApexMotorsports.co.uk in the dying embers of the 2021 Formula 1 world championship. It allowed me freedom to write whatever I wanted to write about which was all things motorsports, my passion. I have put a lot of effort in over the years to keep this website in its best shape and I've loved seeing the brand grow consistently, month-on-month, year-on-year. My ambition is to keep watching this brand grow into a primary outlet of news for all things motorsports whilst fueling my desire to pursue a career in sports journalism, specialising in motorsports.

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