Gus Greensmith will get behind the wheel of a Ford Fiesta Rally2 for the first time in over two years when he competes on the third round of the Norwegian Rally Championship next weekend.
Entering Numedalsrally, Greensmith and co-driver Jonas Andersson will use the event as valuable seat time in their preparations for the second round of the World Rally Championship in Sweden on February 24-27.
The M-Sport pairing will test the Puma Rally1 in Sweden next week before traveling to neighboring Norway for the one-day rally. There are seven stages on offer that total just over 62 competitive miles.
Greensmith hasn’t entered a national event of any kind since the AutoGlim Rally in Finland way back in 2017 and hasn’t competed in anything other than a World Rally or Rally1 car since Rally Spain 2019 when he was M-Sport’s WRC2 Pro driver (pictured below).
He’s only competed on snow and ice three times in his career – twice on Rally Sweden in 2017 and ’19 in a Fiesta R5 and then on last year’s Sweden replacement Arctic Rally Finland in the Fiesta WRC.
Explaining the decision to do the Numedalsrally, Greensmith told DirtFish: “It fits in well with my testing schedule for next week and offers me more seat time on a surface I don’t have a lot of experience on. So it made sense to do it.”
None of Greensmith’s direct WRC rivals are on the start list next week but he will face stiff competition on the event.
Ole Christian Veiby – who a week later will enter his first WRC event since being banned for six months following a COVID-19 infringement in Portugal last year – will start as a favorite in his Volkswagen Polo GTI R5, while Marius Aasen (Škoda), Eyvind Brynildsen (Škoda) and Frank Tore Larsen (Volkswagen) – co-driven by Andreas Mikkelsen’s navigator Torstein Eriksen – are among other leading contenders.
