Marcus Gronholm piloted the new ’07 Ford Focus RS to a spectacular win on his home soil at the weekend.
Considered to be the fastest event on the WRC, the Rally of Finland consists of hilly tree-lined hard-packed gravel roads, treacherous blind crests and sweeping turns that require a high level of bravery and drifting ability.
But two-time world champion Gronholm knows the winding roads of Jyvaskyla like the back of his hand and, by clinching victory in the 2007 event on Sunday, he ramped up his tally Rally Finland victories to seven since 2000.
The Finn’s BP-Ford team-mate and countryman, Mikko Hirvonen, took the fight to the veteran – most of their runs on the special stages were near identical, and at the end of the four-day event came in second – only 24,2 secs behind Gronholm.
The result of the two Flying Finns takes the BP-Ford World Rally Team to a tally of 132 points, 40 points ahead of second-in-the-standings Citroën Total. Subaru come in third so far, with 48 points.
Gronholm spoke highly of Hirvonen’s performance in Rally Finland and admitted that a slight miscalculation could have given his team-mate a victory margin. “Mikko pushed me incredibly hard all weekend and there was never an opportunity to relax. One small error on my part and he would have been passed me.
“I’m happy that he helped my championship challenge by finishing in front of Loeb. This result is great for both the drivers’ and the manufacturers’ championships. It was important for the title for me to score 10 points here,” Gronholm added.
Reigning world champion Sebastien Loeb tried to take a challenge the Fords in his Citroën C4 WRC, but had to settle for a cautious third place to minimise Gronholm’s growing advantage in the driver’s championship standings.
“It wasn’t for wont of trying, I pushed very hard on Friday, as well as during the early part of the second leg, yet the gap continued to widen. Although I felt fully confident in my Citroen C4 WRC on Day 1, that was less the case afterwards but perhaps that impression was also due to the fact that I didn’t want to make any mistakes and that I didn’t have an entirely free hand,” Loeb was quoted as saying.
Loeb also admitted that, in terms of the driver’s championship, third wasn’t what he was hoping for, but hoped to turn the tables on his rivals in the upcoming OMV ADAC Rallye Deutschland in two weeks’ time.
Gronholm extended his lead over Loeb for the driver’s title by 13 points with 75 and third-placed Hirvonen (57) moved within striking distance of Loeb’s total of 62.
Subaru’s Chris Atkinson, scored much needed five points by finishing in fourth place. Atkinson, now seventh in the driver’s standings, is closing on team-mate Petter Solberg, who retired from the rally on Sunday. Atkinson showed a lot of speed and consistency in Finland – exactly what the team expected from their younger driver.
“We just tried to keep the pace of the car right through the weekend,” said Atkinson. “To be able to do those times for the first day and a half was great, and let’s hope we can continue it for the rest of the year. The car is performing well on tarmac at the moment, so we’re confident we can continue this pace in Germany. I’m pleased with the way we have gone this weekend, and think it is encouraging for the team.”
Speaking of Germany, with all its narrow asphalt roads through vineyards and broken up concrete paths at a military base… Loeb’s been very hard to beat there in the past and the Frenchman is as much at home there as the Finns are in Jyvaskyla. It will be interesting to see if Ford’s speed can foil Loeb’s legendary talent on tarmac.
Watch the highlights from Rally Finland on CSN/SuperSport 2 at Monday August 6 at 7pm.