Mikko Heikkilä scored his first European Rally Championship victory on Royal Rally of Scandinavia, after previous rally leaders Teemu Suninen and Jaspar Vaher both crashed out on the final day.
Toyota’s WRC Challenge Program prodigy Vaher was making his first start in the ERC’s top-level category, Rally2, having only stepped up to four-wheel-drive rallying this year. Despite his inexperience, he charged ahead from the very start, winning the opening stage of the Karlstad-based event and at one point holding an 11.5s advantage over the chasing Suninen.
But the second pass of Ängebäckstorp was Vaher’s undoing, oversteering through a very fast left-hander and sliding helplessly into the trees on the inside of the corner exit. Though Vaher was able to continue, he lost almost nine minutes and dropped outside the top 20 – albeit achieving four stage wins in total, demonstrating speed that belied his lack of experience.
“Our performance was definitely much better than we expected,” said Vaher. “We gave quite a good fight for the first place. We were quite on the limit today and made a really minor mistake but the consequences were quite big.”
19-year-old Vaher stole the show in Sweden, winning four stages and leading the rally for 12 of them. The Toyota junior's performance suggests it is now a question of when, not if, he will reach the top level of rallying
Suninen, who arrived in Sweden off the back of a WRC2 victory in Portugal earlier in May, had plenty of experience on these roads in snowy conditions, having tackled the event which previously hosted Sweden’s WRC round before its shift from Värmland to Umeå.
The battle for victory was closely run: Heikkilä, who had finished second on this rally in 2024, closed the lead gap to 2.8s with a storming run through the Ölme test. On the penultimate stage of the rally Suninen blinked, overshooting a medium-speed left that was immediately followed by a right-hander and ended up in a ditch, which pitched him around and into the trees.
Though spectators attempted to push Suninen’s Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 back onto the road, his rally ended in the aforementioned ditch of Lövhöjden’s second pass.
Heikkilä’s win brings to an end his nearly-man streak in the championship, having been on the precipice of victory in Hungary last year until a wheel sheared off coming over a jump.
After running into trouble and retiring while leading in past ERC rounds, it was finally Heikkilä's turn to be the beneficiary of trouble for rivals and ascend to the podium's top step
“We have been trying to get this for quite a long time,” said Heikkilä. “It’s quite a nice feeling, quite a long time fighting just to get tenths of a second. This was the target and we can be really happy now.”
M-Sport WRC part-timer Mārtiņš Sesks finished second aboard his Team MRF Škoda, 15.7s behind Heikkilä. He started on the back foot when a spin and stall on stage three cost him almost 10 seconds – a significant loss on the fast gravel stages of Värmland – but caught and passed Isak Reiersen on stage 12.
Reiersen scored a second Royal Rally podium in succession, having also finished third on last year’s running of Sweden’s ERC round. He was almost a minute up on another pair of fast young Swedes heading into the powerstage: current Junior WRC championship leader and last year’s Junior ERC champion Calle Carlberg and his team-mate Patrik Hallberg were fighting over tenths of a second to decide fourth place.
In the end two punctures across the rally’s final loop for Hallberg decided the outcome: though he finished the powerstage he’d run out of inflated tires and had to retire before the rally’s final time control.
That promoted Team MRF’s Simone Tempestini to the top five, 23.1s ahead of the hard-charging Eyvind Brynildsen in sixth.
Brynildsen demonstrated how critical qualifying was: he bled time sweeping away loose gravel on Saturday while Vaher, fastest on Friday's qualifying test, sped ahead at the front of the field
Brynildsen had won last year’s Royal Rally of Scandinavia but a spin on the qualifying stage, which in ERC determines road order for the first leg of the rally, stranded him in a road-sweeper role on the first day.
It was a case of what might have been for the third of Team MRF’s entries: Brynildsen surged from 18th to sixth overall across the final day’s eight stages.
“It’s crazy how much six kilometers in qualifying can destroy a whole weekend,” said Brynildsen. “18th to 7th [sixth after Hallberg’s retirement] in a day is not too bad. Thanks to MRF and Vivek [Ponusammy] who still trust in old folks!
“Maybe it’s a little bit cocky to say but maybe they [our rivals] were lucky we destroyed [our rally] in qualifying because today on some stages we’ve been on it and I think we could have been fighting for the podium.”
Reigning ERC champion Miko Marczyk could only muster seventh place overall, 8.2s off Brynildsen. Joosep Ralf Nõgene was unlucky to be eighth, having lost 50s to a lateness penalty exiting Saturday morning service; without it, he would have finished fifth overall.
Brandon Semenuk finished in the top 10 on his ERC debut but felt he was capable of more
Nõgene demoted four-time American Rally Association National champion Brandon Semenuk to eighth place on the powerstage by just 1.1s, though Semenuk was able to keep WRC2 regular Fabrizio Zaldívar behind him to secure ninth overall by just 3.7s.
“I know I can do a lot better than this,” said Semenuk. “But it’s been very little time in the car in the last year, so I should be fairly happy about aspects of the week.
“ERC is a really cool championship, I’d love to do it again. Maybe a bit frustrated about my driving but we can improve on things, come back and hopefully have a better show.”
Andrea Mabellini, one of last year’s title contenders, crashed out on Saturday morning and did not restart in the factory-backed Lancia Ypsilon Rally2 HF Integrale.
Heikkilä and Cohete Suarez, winner of the season-opening Sierra Morena rally, are tied at the top of the ERC standings with 30 points apiece. Despite his Sunday retirement Teemu Suninen is still best-placed of the full-time entrants in the championship, holding fifth place and eight points off the top spot. Mabellini is ninth, 10 points off the pace; reigning champion Marczyk is only 13th overall, albeit only 15 points behind Heikkilä and Suarez.
Timo Schulz won the Junior ERC class – but was fortunate to end up there given Aatu Hakalehto's searing pace
Ville Vatanen dominated the ERC3 category, winning 14 of the 16 stages to beat fellow Ford Fiesta Rally3 runner Craig Rahill to victory by 1m01.9s.
Junior ERC had been dominated for most of the rally by Lancia pilot Aatu Hakalehto, who was at one point a minute clear of the field. But a crash on stage 13 opened the door for a factory Opel 1-2, with Timo Schulz leading home Tom Heinrichs by 17.5s. Davide Pesavento in the best of the works-backed Lancia Ypsilon Rally4 HFs completed the podium places in Junior ERC.
