The organisers of Rally Finland have received two entries from Volkswagen Motorsport for Andreas Mikkelsen and Joonas Lindroos to drive Skoda Fabia S2000s.
Next month’s Jyvaskyla-based event will be the first World Rally Championship outing for the Volkswagen team. The German manufacturer is expected to contest the remainder of this year’s WRC season except for September’s Rally Australia.
Volkswagen is using S2000 Skodas for exploratory WRC rallies before it launches its WRC Polo in 2013.
The one omission from the Rally Finland entry list is Nasser Al-Attiyah. The Qatari had been expected to drive a Fabia S2000 in Finland, having agreed terms with VW for a WRC contract until the end of 2013. Neither VW or Al-Attiyah was available when AUTOSPORT contacted them.
Lindroos is a 26-year-old Finn, highly regarded in his home series and Mikkelsen is already well acquainted with the VW Group, driving a Skoda UK Motorsport Fabia in the IRC.
Al-Attiyah said he would be signing his contract with VW last weekend, when he joined fellow Dakar winners Carlos Sainz and Giniel de Villiers in a biogas-powered Scirocco to take class success in the Nurburgring 24-hour race.
Rally Finland runs from July 28-30.
AUTOSPORT