Sandell delighted with best-ever home run

Former Junior champion Patrik Sandell from Sweden declared himself very pleased with his best-ever result on home territory: eighth overall in the MINI John Cooper Works WRC, run by Prodrive.

Sandell, who has also competed on the Production Car World Rally Championship, is putting together a programme of selected events this year in the MINI as part of the innovative Sweden World Rally Team scheme. This is backed by Swedish former champions such as Bjorn Waldegard and Stig Blomqvist.

Next week the 30-year-old should know more about his programme for 2012, after he meets his backers to finalise his plans.

“This is just the beginning,” said Sandell. “I’ve still got a lot to learn about the MINI but this has been a solid start. Maybe my next rally will be Portugal, but we will see.”

Touring car driver Richard Goransson, competing in the Swedish Touring Car Championship with BMW this year, was pleased just to finish his home rally in another MINI.

“We started off the rally first on the road and we finished first on the road,” said the Swede at the end of the final stage. “It’s going to be a good memory for my future rally career - maybe!

"It was a shame that we had an engine problem yesterday, but today was fun, even though I couldn’t push as hard as I wanted to. I’d definitely like to do some more. People say that I should try some asphalt rallies, but I’m not sure if that will be possible this year.”