Pirelli first and second in Sweden!

Milan, 13/02/2005- Pirelli has won the Rally Sweden, round two of the World Rally Championship and the only full snow event of the year, with Subaru driver Petter Solberg taking his 11th career victory. The Pirelli-equipped Peugeot of Markko Martin is second, contributing to a total of six Pirelli runners in the top 10. Throughout the three-day event, Pirelli set fastest stage times with five drivers and all three of their teams: Subaru, Peugeot and Mitsubishi. The weather in Sweden this year was warmer than average, making many of the normally snowy stages rough and gravelly. Drivers had a  choice of short, intermediate or long studs for their Pirelli P Zero J1 snow tyres, but the 'dirty' stages meant that the majority of drivers chose short studs for most of the event. These offered consistent levels of grip and little or no stud loss, thanks to Pirelli's unique patented manufacturing process where studs are inserted into the tyre during production rather than by hand afterwards. Solberg fought a tense battle for the lead with Pirelli-equipped Peugeot driver Marcus Gronholm from the very beginning of the event. The pair traded tenths of a second, but the battle was decided in Solberg's favour when Gronholm crashed on the final day. In total, Pirelli won 16 stages out of 20, underlining the capabilities of the P Zero range in these challenging conditions. The Pirelli-equipped Subaru of Toshi Arai also won the Production Car class for Group N machinery. Pirelli Motorsport Director Paul Hembery commented: " Despite conditions which have been even more difficult than usual, our tyres have won the rally and far more stages than anybody else. This is thanks to everybody's hard work, and the obvious strength of our newly-patented production process." Swedish Rally (round 2 of 16) - Final Classification 1 Solberg-Mills Subaru Impreza WRC 3h00m52.1s 2 Martin-Park Peugeot 307 WRC +2m11.1s 3 Gardemeister-Honkanen Ford Focus WRC +3m14.7s 4 Rovanpera-Pietilainen Mitsubishi Lancer WRC +3m26.4s 5 Solberg-Menkerud Ford Focus WRC +3m29.8s 6 Carlsson-Andersson Peugeot 307 WRC +3m42.5s 7 Galli-d'Amore Mitsubishi Lancer WRC +4m04.0s 8 Kresta-Tomanek Ford Focus WRC +4m39.6s 9 Paasonen-Vainikka Skoda Fabia WRC +5m11.1s 10 Ekstrom-Bergmann Skoda Fabia WRC +7m04.2s Next round: Rally Mexico, March 11-13