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Gronholm calls time on WRC career after difficult WRC Sweden outing

Marcus Gronholm has called time on his World Rally Championship career after a disappointing Rally Sweden outing last weekend.

The two-time world champion retired from full-time driving at the end of 2007 but has made three additional WRC appearances since then, most recently at the wheel of a Toyota Yaris WRC on the second round of this year's series.

The Torsby-based event was Gronholm's first outing in a current-generation World Rally Car and he admitted coming to terms with the latest specification car was a tougher assignment than he had envisaged.

Gronholm showed solid pace in testing ahead of the rally but, once into event proper, he struggled to match the speed of the frontrunners and spun twice on the first two forest stages on Friday, then went into the trees on the third.

"In these conditions, with the ruts and the way the road was, it was harder than I thought it should be," he told Autosport.

Gronholm had entered the event as a belated 50th birthday present to himself, having originally talked to Toyota team principal Tommi Makinen about competing on his favourite WRC round in Sweden last year.

Asked if he would consider competing again, Gronholm replied: "No, that's enough now. No [Rally] Finland."

Rally Sweden winner Ott Tanak said he was pleased to see the Finn competing again.

"It was good for him to come," said the Toyota driver.

"It wasn't so easy to drive in these conditions, but the priority was for him to have some fun and I think he's done that."

Zdroj: autosport.com