It’s been over a month since the traditional season opener in Monte Carlo, and any fears of a Toyota whitewash following their domination of that event, have well and truly be dispelled now, as the running order was somewhat turned on its head.

After the series struggled to get any snow for the past couple of years, in Rally Sweden, it was refreshing to see a healthy level of snow across all the stages, and allowed skill and finesse to be the order of the day, as the drivers tried to keep their cars between the snow banks.

Right out of the gates Tanak was going flat out, doing his best to make up for the disaster at Monaco, he was quickly able to build a comfortable lead over his teammate Breen. Craig himself was doing really well, with this being his first outing of the year, he clearly had car pace, it would just be consistency that let him down as the rally wore on. Rovanpera was the pre-rally favourite, given his past success on snow. He was the best of the Toyotas over the first few stages, although that was less impressive here, given how much his teammates were struggling.

The three big names of Evans, Neuville and Ogier were in fourth, fifth and eighth, all getting to grips with the snow early on, hampered by their Friday start positions. The star early on, and would continue to be over the three days, was the young rookie Oliver Solberg, son of the 2003 champion, after Friday he was ahead of Ogier by four seconds, and looking at home here. Ford was enjoying a much better time in Finland, with Suninen up in sixth, even if he wasn’t happy with the cars straight line speed.

Come Saturday, we saw Rovanpera show the pace we had expected from the outset, passing Breen but only matching Tanak, seemingly the Toyota and Hyundai were evenly matched on snow. After the promising start for the Fiesta, the straight line speed deficit started to show and Suninen lost time in stage 4 to drop back to ninth.

Out front, Tanak felt confident enough to keep pushing and extend his lead over Kalle, this could be a sign of what’s to come from the Estonian, who had a tough 2020 following his championship win in 2019. Neuville was getting more comfortable with his new co-driver, as they are still very new to each other, and it was showing out on the stages as he passed Breen to get third.

The main problem which the drivers were having to overcome, was losing the studs on their tyres, due to the sliding tyres ripping them off the carcass. We also saw many lucky drivers bouncing the rear end of their cars off the snowbanks, keeping the car pointing the right direction. However, when they got to the last stage of the day, the last real corner of that stage in fact, the reigning champions luck ran out as he ploughed into a snow bank, which trapped him there for ten minutes, all but ruining his rally.

This showed how easy it is to make a mistake on these roads, and that even the best can do it, but given how near to the end he was, it must have been heart breaking. From this point on all the drivers settled into their positions in the rally, the only last minute change was Katsuta passing Solberg for sixth, after he copied Ogier’s mistake, but luckily for him he didn’t lose anywhere near as much time.

The final power stage was a chance for Rovanpera to remind everyone that he is still a master of snow, even if he had been beaten in the rally, similarly for Breen it was redemption after slipping off of the podium. Ogier did manage to grab one point, but it will not mask the dent in his title chances, yet you can never count him out, especially as he is not far off the title lead.

Two points in the last stage completed a redeeming weekend for Tanak, who desperately needed to remind the world that he should in the conversation with Ogier, Neuville and Evans, as to who could take the championship. We know he can do it; he just needs everything to come together, and this momentum could be just what he needed.

The Arctic Rally has most certainly brought a few more contenders into the picture, so can Hyundai keep pushing Toyota, and stop them winning another title?