Citroën’s Sébastien Loeb
has won the Neste Oil Rally Finland
for the first time in his victory-rich World Rally Championship (WRC) career.
The Frenchman finished nine seconds ahead of Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen in an epic
battle for this year’s ninth of 15 WRC rounds.
Mikko Hirvonen, driving for
BP Ford, holds a slender one point lead in the 2008 FIA World Rally
Championship over Citroën’s Sébastien Loeb after Rally Finland, the ninth of this season’s
15 WRC events.
This is the sixth win of
the season for Loeb and co-driver Daniel Elena. In fact, from a total of 107
WRC starts, Loeb has won 42 events, yet this is their first victory out of
seven attempts in Finland.
The pair is one of just three teams from outside the Nordic region to claim
victory since the creation of the manufacturers' world championship in 1973.
"I'm thrilled to have won
this rally," said the 34-year-old Loeb. "And I'm especially pleased with the
way we won it. From start to finish, the scrap reminded me of the thrilling
clashes we had last year with Marcus Grönholm. It was a very close run
throughout and we were never able to relax. The decision to keep the lead at
the end of the opening day involved a certain amount of risk because we didn't
know exactly how much road-sweeping we would have to do. It meant pushing hard
all the way, but the tactic finally paid off."
Having turned 28 on the Thursday the
rally started, Hirvonen won six of the 24 stages and relished the fight with
Loeb.
"I'm pleased with my driving but I
came here to win and Loeb found a few seconds more. We played cat and
mouse all weekend and when I won a stage, he usually won the next. For
there to be only nine seconds between us after all this crazy driving is
amazing. I lost the time by not being brave enough in the narrow sections.
I'm pleased to still lead the championship but one point isn't much," said
Hirvonen.
Finishing third, his fifth
podium finish of the season, Australia's
Chris Atkinson and co-driver Stéphane Prévot have scored their first points in
the new Subaru Impreza WRC2008. Atkinson is now back to third in the
drivers' standings behind Hirvonen and Loeb.
Rally Finland was also the fifth round of
the Production World Rally Championship (P-WRC) and fourth round of the Junior
World Rally Championship (J-WRC).
The Ralliart New Zealand
entry of Finn Juho Hänninen dominated the production category in his Mitsubishi
Lancer EVO 9. Scoring a maximum ten points after finishing over two
minutes ahead of the rest of the competition, Hänninen is now second in the
standings while also having contested one less round than current points'
leader Andreas Aigner.
"This is a very important
result. We needed these ten points to keep our championship hopes alive," said
27-year old Hänninen. "We had a very good rally with Juha (Salo) on Friday
and Saturday morning which was really enjoyable. After his mistake it was
difficult to keep a rhythm without losing too much time or taking risks. I look
forward to New Zealand
as I like it very much so I think it's possible to score some good points
there.
In the J-WRC category, Czech Republic driver Martin Prokop and
co-driver Jan Tománek took their Citroen C2 S1600 to a 17 second victory over
Patrik Sandell (Sweden)
in Renault Clio R3.
With two weeks until the
next round, the teams have an added challenge of having to convert to tarmac
specification for the Rallye Deutschland, (14-17 August). A further two weeks
later, the cars will again be in gravel trim for the 39th running of Repco
Rally New Zealand (29-30 August).
Final positions - 58th Neste Oil Rally Finland 2008
1. S. Loeb/D. Elena (Citroën C4) 2 h 54 min 05.5 s
2. M. Hirvonen/J. Lehtinen (Ford Focus) + 9 s
4. C. Atkinson/S. Prevot (Subaru Impreza) + 3 min 17 s
4. D. Sordo/M. Martí (Citroën C4) + 3 min 30.9 s
5. H. Solberg/C. Menkerud (Ford Focus) + 3 min 57.7 s
6. P. Solberg/P. Mills (Subatu Impreza) + 3 min 58.7 s
7. M. Rantanen/J. Lönegren (Ford Focus) + 6 min 11.1 s
8. T. Gardemeister/T. Tuominen (Suzuki X4) + 8 min 18.7 s
9. M. Wilson/S. Martin (Ford Focus) + 8 min 37.3 s
10. C. Rautenbach/D. Senior (Citroën C4) + 10 min 30.9 s
Drivers' Championship points - after round nine of 15
1. M Hirvonen -
67pts
2. S Loeb -
66pts
3. C Atkinson -
37pts
4. D Sordo -
35pts
5. J-M Latvala -
34pts
6. P Solberg -
23pts
Manufacturers' Championship points - after round nine of 15
