The Swedish Rally kicked off on Thursday night with a short Super Special stage on the horse trotting track in the host city of Karlstad. Crews tackled the floodlit stage in pairs, with Chris Atkinson up against Manfred Stohl, and Petter Solberg taking on his brother, Henning. Times were extremely close over the 1.9km stage, but Petter ended the day as the leading Subaru, setting the third-fastest time. Chris cleared the stage with the 13th fastest time.
Fastest Time: Gardemeister (Mitsubishi) 01:31.9

Leg one re-started on Friday morning with Likenas – the first ‘proper’ stage of the rally. After some snow flurries overnight, organisers sent the scraper truck through the stage four hours before it was run, but a subsequent dusting made the route slippery in places. Petter Solberg moved into the overall lead after winning the stage by 5.6sec. A delighted Solberg said it was: “Not a bad start to the rally!” Still relatively inexperienced on snow, Chris Atkinson adopted a cautious approach but completed the test without incident in the eleventh fastest time.
Fastest Time: Fastest time: Solberg (Subaru) 14:13.1

After a refuelling halt and a 60km road section, crews tackled Hara, a narrow and technical sprint along forest roads. Stage conditions were similar to SS2, with a thin layer of powdery snow on top of a harder base. Petter Solberg piloted his Impreza WRC2006 through in the fifth-fastest time to maintain his position as overall leader, while Chris Atkinson continued to ease himself into the event, taking few chances and setting the 11th fastest time.
Fastest Time: Fastest time: Galli (Citroen) 6:22.8

Torntorp 1 was the iciest of the morning group of stages and with a narrow, rock-lined route, allowed little margin for error. As drivers adapted to the specialist conditions, there was another different stage winner – the fourth from four tests – but Petter Solberg’s consistency ensured he kept his position as overall leader: “I’m struggling a little in the narrow stuff, but overall it’s good – I’m quite happy!” he said. Chris Atkinson posted his best time of the rally so far, taking ninth on the stage. After the finish control, crews drove a 16km road section to Hagfors and a 30-minute service.
Fastest Time: Fastest time: Loeb (Citroen) 9:56.8

“I’m having a really good time. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt so happy with my performance! The stages are quite tricky; the snow banks are very soft, and when the guys ahead have been using them a lot of loose snow gets pulled out onto the road, so the surface is not cleaning as much as we’d hoped, but it’s not too bad. We’re going to try a couple of small things in service to try and gain a little more grip, we’ll see how we go but I’m looking forward to the rest of the day.”
“We took it a little easy to begin with, so we’re a bit away from the leaders in terms of our placing but time-wise we’re not that far back - there are just a lot of people in between us. Our road position wasn’t ideal for the first stage but we have no problems to report and the car’s running well. This afternoon we’re going to keep it consistent but try to pick up the pace a bit and see how we get on.”

After service, crews drove 81km north back to Likenas to repeat the first stage of the day. Road conditions were very different for the second passage and drivers reported a softer surface which didn’t provide much grip – even with spiked tyres. Despite setting the second fastest time, Petter said: “It was very difficult, there wasn’t enough traction, especially under braking, and I feel I lost a lot there.” He slipped to second overall, 1.2sec behind Marcus Gronholm. Chris Atkinson’s pace continued to improve and he recorded the sixth fastest time. “It was certainly more difficult than the first pass,” he said. “There were some deep ruts, and patches of ice and gravel in places. It was pretty hard on the tyres.”
Fastest Time: Fastest time: Gronholm (Ford) 12:21.5

The sixth stage of the Swedish Rally was a repeat of the short Hara section, run earlier in the day as SS3. Atkinson and Solberg set the sixth and seventh fastest times respectively and held their overall placings. Elsewhere, another fastest time from Gronholm meant he extended his overall rally lead to 8.3sec, while Sebastien Loeb shot from fifth overall to third, 8.3 sec behind Solberg.
Fastest Time: Fastest time: Gronholm (Ford) 06:10.2

After two repeated stages, the penultimate test of the Leg was a fresh challenge and featured a surface that had been scraped clean earlier in the day. The longest stage of the Leg, Vargasen was last run in this year’s format in 2005 and is famous for a huge jump 10km from the start known as ‘Colin’s Crest’ after a gravity defying perfomance from the ex-Subaru World Champion. After stalling on Thursday’s Super Special, and dropping to 20th place overall, Loeb won his second stage of the day and moved up the leaderboard, ahead of Petter Solberg, into second place. Chris had a trouble-free run and set the ninth-fastest time.
Fastest Time: Fastest time: Loeb (Citroen) 13:57.7

As darkness fell, and with spotlights blazing, drivers tackled the final test of the day – the tight and twisty Hagfors Sprint. Although snow was falling as the stage started, thousands of spectators braved the freezing temperature to line the route and cheer on their favourite drivers. Marcus Gronholm collected his third stage-win to stay in the lead by 11sec. Petter Solberg recorded the third-fastest time to hold his third place overall, while Chris Atkinson was seventh on the stage to end the day eighth.
Fastest Time: Fastest time: Gronholm (Ford) 2:00.0

	1 Marcus GRONHORM FORD Focus RS WRC 06 1:05:21.3   2 Sebastien LOEB CITROEN C4 WRC +11.1   3 Petter SOLBERG SUBARU IMPREZA WRC 2006 +22.6   4 Henning SOLBERG FORD Focus RS WRC 06 +27.9   5 Mikko HIRVONEN FORD Focus RS WRC 06 +31.0   6 Toni GARDEMEITER Mitsubishi Lancer WR05* +34.9   7 Daniel CARLSSON CITROEN Xsara WRC +44.1   8 Manfred STOHL CITROEN Xsara WRC +1:05.0   9 Chris ATKINSON SUBARU IMPREZA WRC 2006 +1:08.8   10 Jari-Matti LATVALA FORD Focus RS WRC 06 +1:40.6

All of the stages on Leg Two are situated in the countryside close to the service area at Hagfors. The day comprises seven timed stages, and ends with a repeat pass through the shortest test of the rally – the 1.87km Hagfors Sprint. The total competitive distance is 141.96km and the action begins at 0803hrs with the 10km Lesjofors stage.