A Junior ERC Championship graduate, the 18-year-old
overcame his lack of four-wheel-drive experience to lead from Friday’s sixth
stage.
Apart from a handful of spins, the Swede
performed without fault alongside co-driver Johan Grönvall to head a WRC3
podium that included runner-up and FIA Rally Star programme member Romet
Jürgenson from Estonia, plus third-placed Irishman Eamonn Kelly.
Johansson also topped the Junior WRC
classification for a memorable home rally result.
“The feeling has been great all weekend,
just some small driving mistakes losing some time, but we have taken that back
and had a strong pace all weekend,” Johansson said. “I’m just very happy right
now.”
Aside from the top three finishers, other
strong performances came from Spain’s Raúl Hernández, Belgian Tom Rensonnet and
Kazakhstan driver Petr Borodin, who came home fourth, fifth and sixth
respectively.
Fabio Schwarz was sixth after Saturday’s
final stage but the German teenager was unable to go the distance due to damage
sustained to his Fiesta Raly3 when he struck a snowbank on SS16.
Australian Taylor Gill finished seventh
ahead of Romania’s Junior ERC champion Norbert Maior, South African Max Smart
and Spain’s Roberto Blach, who restarted on Sunday morning following suspension
damage picked up on Saturday’s closing stage.
For Jan Černý, it was a case of what might
have been on his Rally Sweden debut. The category winner on last month’s Rallye
Monte-Carlo was leading by 13.5sec after four stages. But an off two kilometres
from the start of SS5 left his Fiesta with significant front-end damage. The
Czech returned to action on Saturday morning but after setting a succession of
top six stage times, a gearbox issue forced his exit after SS12.
“I am happy with the speed we have shown,
we are not specialists in this terrain and it has been our first experience in
Sweden,” said the Tenerife-based driver. “We could have finished on the podium
and scored some very important points, but that was not the case.”
Černý’s fellow Czech, Filip Kohn, was a
double stage winner after earlier delays.
Portugal
Spain
France
