Marcus Gronholm, double World Rally Champion, announced his decision to come out of retirement to participate in Rally Portugal, to be held in April. Gronholm will be driving a Subaru Impreza WRC for the event, which is up-to-date with the latest specifications required by the WRC. Timo Rautiainen, who has been navigator to Gronholm since 1995, will be his co-driver.
Since Gronholm retired in 2007, this will be his first appearance in a WRC event, and so far is to be a one-off. Talking about the comeback, Gronholm said, “I made the decision a few days ago. It’s okay to come back again. Everybody is looking at me, and maybe I’m stupid, but to have fun and drive again, why not?”
With 30 WRC rally titles under his belt, Gronholm has been a part of the last two Rally Portugal events, and has been driving a Ford Focus WRC both times. Finishing fourth in the 2007 event, Gronholm is quite realistic about his expectations, “I will not start aiming for the win, as I want to compare my speed with the regular WRC boys over the first few stages. The important thing is to feel confidence and pleasure, coming back to an event that I enjoy very much and know the stages quite well.”
Commenting that he need more time in the car, before he could make any predictions about his results, Gronholm remarked, “We have to test the car first, we have to do changes, and find the right feeling and then I can say more. I drove the car a little bit last weekend in Norway and we have another test planned in March, but for the moment I don’t really know where we are. But I hope we can do some little bit good times - that’s the aim.” 
Prodrive, which is supporting Gronholm’s return, has been in talks with the driver for many months now. Richard Taylor, Prodrive director, revealed, “It’s no secret that we were talking with Marcus at the end of last year. He had some interest in coming back so we kept the discussions going and we’ve reached an agreement to go to Portugal. It’s a one-off at this time but we’ll see if he likes it.”
Talking about Gronholm’s car, Taylor remarked, “We have to allow for the fact that we’re not able to homologate the 2009 carefully, but we’ll pull together the best spec of the car that we possibly can.” Gronholm’s car is an upgrade of the 2008 model, which was used by Chris Atkinson and Petter Solberg for the Wales Rally GB, and will be equipped with Ohlins dampers for the purpose.