Craig Breen Rallying: Rally Finnskog Event Preview

SWRC Championship leader Craig Breen will take on Rally Finnskog this Saturday as the 2011 WRC Academy Champion builds up to round two of the SWRC in Sweden next week.

Craig celebrated his 22nd birthday today by going skidooing, but taking a break in the -22 degree temperatures the Irish driver had time to talk about his result on the Monte and a look ahead to this weekend's Rally Finnskog, "We were delighted with our result on the Monte but it must be put into perspective, we were the only SWRC crew to finish. PG (Andersson, Proton) drove a flawless rally and was very unlucky when he was forced to retire. Don't get me wrong I was very happy to collect full points and getting a 25 point jump start in the championship is important but I would have preferred to take the victory on the stages."

The Irish driver decided just before the season opener in the Principality to add Rally Finnskog to his schedule. "The plan this year was to go the John Haugland's ice driving School in Geilo for a few days to brush up on my snow and ice driving, John is a family friend and he was in contact as I was testing in France (for the Monte) and informed us about (Rally) Finnskog and mentioned it would prove a great test session before SWRC Sweden. I've been here in Geilo at John's School sense Tuesday putting up some mileage on the snow and ice, driving on this surface is so specialized that you can't take anything for granted. I'm now looking forward to Saturday's event."

Rally Finnskog is a One-Day event based around the town of Svullrya. The rally covers 8 special stages four individual stages run twice, varying in length from 6.97 km's to 23.78 Km's (Stage Descriptions).

With only a week to SWRC Sweden the event has attracted a big number of WRC crews. Heading the field is Mikko Hirvonen