Last week’s Rally Sweden certainly matched expectations in terms of increased speeds – with Elfyn Evans winning the World Rally Championship’s winter rally at an average speed ever of 77.24mph.
Evans’ maiden win in Sweden was enough to rank the event fourth in the list of fastest ever average speeds on WRC rounds – previously the top eight rallies in the list were all editions of what is now Rally Finland
Toyota driver Evans’ average speed last week was just 1.44mph slower than Kris Meeke’s all-time benchmark in a DS3 WRC from Finland 2016.
The fastest stage from last week’s fastest-ever Rally Sweden was the 13-mile Hof-Finnskog test. Quickest through both times, Evans averaged 81.27mph with the largely stable ice base on Friday morning. The evolution of the conditions was quite clear 24 hours later, when he could only manage 78.85mph.
As expected, fewer (or rather no) snowbanks effectively making the roads wider, allied to the organizers ensuring new tires were available for every long stage, meant that this year’s event was 10% faster than when Ott Tänak won 12 months ago.
