The competition in Sweden is going to be closer than ever this week. And it’s going to be a real family affair for us Solbergs as well; there’s a nations’ cup competition for crosskarts between Sweden and Norway. Oliver is racing in there, which is an interesting one with a Norwegian father and Swedish mother!

Pernilla’s cousin Lukas Walfridson is competing in a Renault and, of course, my brother Henning is driving his Saab. See… a lot of Solbergs in Sweden this week.

This will be the first time I’m coming to compete at the same race meeting as Oliver, which is a really special moment. His form is a bit better than mine though, he comes off the back of two wins in Norway, while I want to bounce back from a tough weekend in Finland.

The PSRX team is really chasing a good result in Sweden after Finland. It was a really tough call not to let us race, even though the car would have been ready two minutes later. I understand the pressure from live television, but at the same time there were some pretty strange decisions made in that race.

But hey, come on, that’s behind us now. In this team we only look forward and we look forward to an incredible race in Sweden. The atmosphere is incredible and, for sure, we will be having some big support at what is my second home race of the season.

Even though the team’s based quite close to this track, we didn’t use it too much for testing, I have done about 10 laps around it this year. It’s a great circuit, with some really interesting sections and, with 44 cars starting this meeting, the racing is going to be fantastic. Obviously, we’re aiming for the win again, but the big thing is to come away with points – this is even more important after we didn’t score well in Finland.

Now, let’s go racing…

Championship positions:
1 Reinis Nitiss 96pts
2 Andreas Bakkerud 82pts
3 Petter Solberg 80pts
4 Topi Heikkinen 74pts
5 Anton Marklund 61pts
6 Timmy Hansen 48pts

Last time out…
Petter’s Citroen DS3 Supercar suffered damage in the semi-final and he was not allowed to take to start of the final – even though the team felt repairs were completed within the time permitted. (World RX of Finland, Kouvola, June 28/29).

Circuit:
Length: 1.210km
Width: 10-16m
Tarmac: 60%
Dirt 40%
Website: finnskogamk.se

Timetable
Saturday July 5
0930 free practice
1200 heats

Sunday July 6
1000 qualifying heats
1530 finals
1630 podium