The 2011 Rally Sweden was the opening round of

2011 World Rally Championship season The 2011 World Rally Championship was the 39th season of the FIA World Rally Championship. The season consisted of 13 rallies, beginning with Rally Sweden on 10 February and ended with Wales Rally GB on 13 November. Sébastien Loeb claimed h ...

. It was the season's first and only event held on snow- and ice-covered gravel roads. The rally took place over 10–13 February, beginning with a

Super Special Stage A special stage (SS) is a section of closed road at a stage rallying event used for timed speed tests. Racers attempt to complete the stage in the shortest time. A race on a special stage is coordinated such that each competing racer begins after a ...

in the event's base town of

Karlstad Karlstad (, ) is the 20th-largest city in Sweden, the seat of Karlstad Municipality, the capital of Värmland County, and the largest city in the province Värmland in Sweden. The city proper had 67,122 inhabitants in 2020 with 97,233 inhabitan ...

. The rally was also the first round of the

Production World Rally Championship The FIA Production car World Rally Championship, or PWRC, was a companion rally series to the World Rally Championship, contested mainly by Group N rally cars. History The series started in 1987 as ''FIA Cup for Production Rally Drivers'' and ...

. The rally saw a beginning to a new era in the World Rally Championship, with the previous generation of WRC machinery such as the

Citroën C4 The Citroën C4 is a car produced by Citroën, part of Stellantis. It was positioned to be the successor to the Citroën Xsara. The first generation production started in September 2004. For its first two generations, the C4 was a compact car/s ...

and the

Ford Focus The Ford Focus is a compact car (C-segment in Europe) manufactured by Ford Motor Company from 1998 until 2025. It was created under Alexander Trotman's Ford 2000 plan, which aimed to globalize model development and sell one compact vehicle worl ...

being phased out in favour of cars with a displacement of . Citroën will use their DS3 model, and Ford will use the Fiesta RS over the course of the 2011 season. Also introduced for the 2011 season is the ''Power Stage'', in which the final stage of each rally will award bonus points towards the championship standings. The fastest driver on the stage, will receive three points with two for the second-fastest and one for the third-fastest. Mikko Hirvonen took the 13th WRC win of his career, and his first victory since winning the same event in

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

, having overhauled

Mads Østberg Mads Østberg (born 11 October 1987) is a Norway, Norwegian Rallying, rally driver. His co-driver is Torstein Eriksen. Career Østberg competed in his first rally in 2004. His first World Rally Championship event was the 2006 Swedish Rally, in ...

midway through the second day. Østberg took his best result in the championship, finishing on the podium for the first time just 6.5 seconds behind Hirvonen. The podium was completed by another Ford driver, as Hirvonen's teammate Jari-Matti Latvala finished third, 34 seconds behind Hirvonen.

Sébastien Ogier Sébastien Eugène Emile Ogier (; born 17 December 1983) is a French Rallying, rally driver, competing for the Toyota Gazoo Racing Team in the World Rally Championship (WRC). He is currently teamed with co-driver Vincent Landais. He has won 8 List ...

finished as the best Citroën driver in fourth place, and also picked up maximum bonus points with his victory on the first Power Stage of the season. Fellow Citroën driver

Petter Solberg Petter Solberg (born 18 November 1974), nicknamed "Mr. Hollywood" is a Norwegian former professional rallying, rally and rallycross driver. Solberg debuted in the World Rally Championship in 1998 and was signed by the Ford World Rally Team, For ...

rounded out the top five places, despite losing his licence before the final stage due to a speeding infringement on Friday afternoon. As per the country's law, the

Swedish Police Authority The Swedish Police Authority () is the national police, police force (''Polisen'') of Sweden. The first modern police force in Sweden was established in the mid-19th century, and the police remained in effect under Municipalities of Sweden, local ...

had given Solberg 48 hours grace before he could no longer drive after being caught going at in an area where the limit was . With the ban coming into effect prior to the final stage, Solberg's co-driver Chris Patterson had to drive the stage. In the supporting PWRC class, Martin Semerád took his first victory by over five minutes ahead of Yuriy Protasov.

Results

Event standings

Special stages

All dates and times are CET (

UTC+1 +01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in: *Central European Time * West Africa Time * Western European Summer Time **Brit ...

Power Stage

The first ever "Power stage", a live televised 4.16 km short stage at the end of the rally, was held near the village of Gustavsfors.

Standings after the rally

;Drivers' Championship standings ;Manufacturers' Championship standings

References

External links

Results
a
eWRC.com
{{Rally Sweden

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

Swedish Rally

Rally Rally or rallye may refer to: Gatherings * Political demonstration, a political rally, a political demonstration of support or protest, march, or parade * Pep rally, an event held at a North American school or college sporting event Sport ...

21st century in Värmland County