Finished my run as well. The preparations for this one were quite tough and on Thursday night my setup was so bad I thought I wouldn't even finish in the top 5. But after some long hours on Saturday I think I nailed the setup. I was quite comfortable both at high speed and in the slower, bumpy corners although at the fast sections I lost some tenths due to my too long 5th gear.
Anyway, first stage started with a big scare at a hairpin right after a jump. The stage note was delayed so I missed the braking completely, flew over the jump and went straight, almost hitting some stewards standing in the most dangerous position. I feel like I wasn't the only one to make a mistake there because I ended up 2nd despite losing time.
Second stage was the first with fog and I am quite happy with the fact I didn't crash while maintaining reasonable to high speeds. SS3 had snowfall and honestly it affected my car's handling quite a loot. One corner the car felt twitchy and the other it just wouldn't turn. I ended up making lots of small mistakes which meant my dampers got damaged. As a result SS4 was basically as messy as SS3 due to my stiffer bumpers. Also, SS4 -in my opinion- had some of the worst pace notes I've had in D4. Absolute pain to navigate.
SS5 was small so I just cruised around setting an okay time. I wanted to keep my bumpers in good shape in order to push next stage. SS6 suited my driving quite well and combined with the perfect setup I managed to get provisional 1st place (although I feel like all the fast guys have already set a time so I should be safe. Better not jinx it though). It's been quite a while considering last time I won a stage was in S3 of Dirt Rally in Monte Carlo :lol:
As for SS7 it had the same death-hairpin that SS1 had, but at least this time I knew how to approach it. At this point I realised Iza was 2nd overall, 3s faster than me, so considering I had a gap of ~40 seconds to 4th place, I decided to push as much as I could in the Power Stage. It went quite well but as always, just when you think you got the victory, Mirk reminds you he is the boss in Sweden so you just have to be happy with 2nd! Either way, while I was a couple of seconds faster than Iza it wasn't quite enough to snatch 2nd from him, so I'll have to settle for 3rd place for a second time this season (provided that no one else sets better times the next few hours). Great battle and great event! Lots of fun for me at least.
but it wasn't enough to challenge current leader @mirk who put in another blitzing drive in the tough conditions. Hoping to hold on to a podium place this time but it might be a bit of a stretch looking at the tight competition this season 
