The Rally Sweden organizer has released the entry list for the second round of the 2022 World Rally Championship, with Lorenzo Bertelli piloting a fourth M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1.
M-Sport won last weekend’s Monte Carlo Rally with Sébastien Loeb but the nine-time world champion currently has no agreement in place for any future rallies despite wishing to return.
Second-placed Sébastien Ogier also won’t compete as he too is undertaking a part-time program this year, and he won’t be back for Toyota until at least after Rally Croatia.
That means Toyota’s Kalle Rovanperä heads the entry list as the highest ranked driver in the championship that will compete in Sweden, ahead of M-Sport’s Craig Breen and Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville.
Neuville is one of three former Sweden winners on the entry with team-mate Ott Tänak and Elfyn Evans all starting the February 24-27 event.
Oliver Solberg retains his place in Hyundai’s line-up while Esapekka Lappi gets his first start of the season and first in the top class of the WRC since Rally Finland last year.
At M-Sport, Gus Greensmith will be eligible for manufacturer points for the first time this season, along with Breen and Adrien Fourmaux, while Lorenzo Bertelli – a long-standing M-Sport customer – gets his first taste of hybrid rallying.
Bertelli is a semi-regular competitor in the WRC and made two appearances last season: most recently on the Safari Rally but also on Arctic Rally Finland, which was brought in as a substitute for the canceled Swedish event.
M-Sport will compete in WRC2 for the first time this season too with Jari Huttunen and Mattias Adielsson listed as the team’s two entrants.
Huttunen made a switch from Hyundai to M-Sport for last year’s Monza Rally and won, and had been known to be under consideration to drive a Fiesta Rally2 in 2022.
Andreas Mikkelsen, Marco Bulacia, and Nikolay Gryazin will all once again be present for Toksport Škoda, while Georg Linnamäe makes his first start of the season in a Volkswagen Polo GTI R5.
Other names to look out for in WRC2 include Ole Christian Veiby – making his first start in WRC since his six-month ban last May – driving a Polo R5, Emil Lindholm in a Škoda and American Rally Association hopeful Kyle Tilley, who’ll compete on Rally Sweden one week after the Sno*Drift Rally in Michigan.
Double Junior WRC champion and former Suzuki works driver Per-Gunnar Andersson also makes his first WRC start since 2013 driving a Ford Fiesta but isn’t registered for the championship.
Rally Sweden moves north to Umeå this year in a bid to find more fresh snow. There had been complications with the route that were potentially going to lead to some stages being scrapped, but DirtFish understands those issues have now been resolved.
