Hirvonen wins in Finland

Victorious in his first Rally from Finland, Mikko Hirvonen could be exultant when he arrived at the SS23 checkpoint on Sunday. The Ford driver mastered his home event from start to finish to finish 25,1 seconds ahead of his runner-up Sébastien Loeb.

« I am very, very happy. It?s an intense feeling to impose yourself », indicated the winner of the day. “ Everything went as we planned. It was an intense fight with Seb but it went well from start to finish. Now there is still a long way to go before the end of the championship and we must not get carried away. »

Sébastien Loeb, for his part, recognized the superiority of his opponent but did not admit defeat. “ Mikko had a very good rally, he was untouchable and made no mistakes, we have to accept that “, conceded the Frenchman. “ Now it's certain that for the championship, we would have preferred to win. We are three points behind with three rallies remaining in the season. Everything remains playable, it's going to be terrible! »

Third, Jari-Matti Latvala (Ford) managed without too much difficulty to hold off Dani Sordo (Citroën) to get on the podium, a month after his blunder in Poland. The Finn, victim of food poisoning on Saturday, managed to overtake the Spaniard in SS16 and was able to maintain his position until the end. He thus signs his first podium in Finland.

If the last stage of the rally did not bring major changes at the top of the ranking, on the other hand, the fight for the places of honor raged until the end. Sébastien Ogier (Citroën), who started 17,5 seconds behind Matti Rantanen (Ford) on Sunday morning, failed 3 tenths (!) from fifth place. Jari Ketomaa (Subaru) finished in seventh place, just ahead of Matthew Wilson (Ford) who scored the final point in the Drivers' standings. On the other hand, Conrad Rautenbach (Citroën) did not manage to reach the finish. The Zimbabwean went out in the penultimate stage of the day and had to retire.