20-year-old Mille Johansson from Katrineholm and co-driver Johan Grönvall from Arvika are set for the season finale in the FIA European Rally Championship (ERC). Croatia Rally takes place 3–5 October around Zagreb and will be the duo’s sixth start in this year’s championship during their debut season in the top category.
Last weekend, the pair contested Rally Valli della Carnia in Italy as preparation, finishing eighth overall and winning the U25 category despite challenging conditions with changing weather and difficult tyre choices. With the experience from Italy in the bag, they now face a new challenge on Croatia’s demanding asphalt roads.
– It was a tough event with the weather constantly shifting between rain and sunshine, which made tyre choice crucial. On Friday we went out on the wrong tyres and, with very little experience in the rain in a Rally2 car, we lost a lot of time. But we built up the pace more and more, and I was quite pleased with the final loop on Saturday when comparing times with Mikkelsen, said Mille Johansson about last weekend’s rally in Italy.
In Croatia, the Swedes face a strong entry list of 32 Rally2 cars, with the full ERC elite present along with WRC2 driver Lauri Joona from Finland, who also competes with MS Munaretto. Mille and Johan continue with a Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 on Pirelli tyres.
– We went straight from Italy to Croatia for a few days of rest before starting our tests here. Hopefully we can find a good setup for this type of asphalt, which is much more slippery than in most other countries, Mille continued.
For Mille and Johan, currently seventh in the ERC standings after five of seven events, the weekend is about both finishing the ERC season strongly and building confidence ahead of the season’s main highlight – the Junior WRC finale at Central European Rally later in October, where they will fight for the World Championship title.
– The rally in Italy was tough and in particular one of the stages was quite tricky to get the reading right. But I think both Mille and I learned a lot that we can take with us. We start with a couple of days off to go through the rally as best we can and then on Wednesday we’ll do a test before Croatia gets underway, said Johan Grönvall.
Croatia Rally begins on Friday with shakedown, followed by six stages on Saturday and four on Sunday.
– We want to be able to set some competitive times while also building confidence ahead of CER, added Mille Johansson.
– We’ll try to finish this ERC season strongly and hopefully gain more experience that we can carry into the final Junior WRC round in just over three weeks’ time, Johan concluded.