The new Ford Fiesta R2 rally car performed for the first time in snowy conditions last weekend in Arctic Rally, Rovaniemi. 20-year-old Finnish rally talent, Jussi Kumpumäki, and professional racing car driver Mika Salo were happy to compete the demanding event without any technical problems.

After the two-day rally and 12 special stages Kumpumäki finished fourth in class and Salo finished 10th.

With the Fiesta SportTrophy Finland series soon to kick off, the series organizer, Teemu Horkama, was very pleased with the performance of both the cars and drivers. He commented, "Our two Fiesta R2 cars completed a total of 410 stage kilometres without any problems and the only spare parts changed during the event were brake pads. That is a very good sign that running costs with the Fiesta R2 are much lower compared to other front-wheel drive rally cars in our championship series."

Horkama continued, "I'm also satisfied that Kumpumäki scored the very first stage victory for the Fiesta R2 in highly competitive Finnish Championship. Our next step will be undergo in-depth testing prior to the next event, which will allow for work to be undertaken with suspension set-up in order to make the car even faster."

Six rounds in FST Finland series

The Fiesta SportTrophy Finland series will officially start with the Joensuu Rally, on the 6th of March.

After that the series includes the remaining three Finnish Championship summer events and also WRC Neste Oil Rally in Jyväskylä.

Horkama explained, "We asked every competitor if they would like the opportunity to compete also in the Neste Oil Rally Finland, in addition to the other events. Everybody was interested, so we decided to organise two separate FST rounds in Jyväskylä, one during Friday leg and other in Saturday leg."