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Two-time World Rally champion Marcus Gronholm will return to the series to drive a Toyota Yaris WRC at next month’s Rally Sweden.
The car, privately entered by Gronholm, will be run by Toyota Gazoo Racing, but not as part of the factory effort.
Gronholm is the joint most successful driver in the history of Sweden’s WRC round, but laughed off suggestions that he could use the 2019 event to chase a sixth win that would put him one ahead of Swedish legend Stig Blomqvist.
As Autosport reported last September, Gronholm came close to driving a Yaris on his favourite WRC round last year but a lack of cars made it difficult. So his belated 50th birthday present comes this season.
“This is about me enjoying my birthday present on the great roads of Rally Sweden,” said Gronholm, who turns 51 the week before his WRC return.
“I have many unforgettable memories from the event and I scored my very first WRC win there in 2000 [pictured]. So now I’ll be doing the rally one more time.
“I’m kind of over-aged as a rally driver, so I’ll be driving accordingly.
“But my starting place will be good behind the others, so I guess we could still come up with something…”
Gronholm, who will have his regular co-driver Timo Rautiainen back with him, is no stranger to the Yaris and drove a factory car for demonstration purposes on the Harju street stage at Rally Finland in 2017.
Despite driving the stage with no pacenotes (he was co-driven by prize winners), Gronholm’s time for the second run was just a fraction slower than the quickest competitive time.
“Harju was good,” Gronholm told Autosport last year. “I only did a five-kilometre test in the car before I jumped in and drove it and the last time I did the stage I was actually quite close to the best time. I was happy with that because I was not driving like crazy. I was thinking: ‘I cannot smash Tommi [Makinen]’s car when I have to give it back…”
He will test the car again before Sweden.
“I intend to drive as many kilometres as possible in order to get a good feel for the car,” he said. “I’m not going to waste time setting up the car myself, but instead will get a set-up from Toyota Gazoo Racing that they think will work well.”
Toyota team boss Makinen told Autosport he is looking forward to seeing what his countryman can do in Sweden.
“He could be very fast, especially in somewhere like Sweden which was one of the rallies he loves,” said Makinen. “With some testing, he could be good and it would be brilliant to see him back on that rally after he won it so many times.”
As well as celebrating his birthday, Gronholm will be able to enjoy one last scrap with arch-rival Sebastien Loeb – who returns to the WRC’s winter round aboard a Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC.
Rally Sweden runs from February 14-17.