Jari-Matti Latvala and co-driver, Miikka Anttila, ruled the WRC roost in Sweden this weekend, where they won their first World Rally (in 2008) and helping Ford achieve its 50th win in the process.
Eager to redeem himself after crashing out of the Monte Carlo Rally on the first day, Latvala pushed hard right from the very start to keep his Fiesta WRC at the front of the pack. After two days of nobody being able to catch the Finn, he hit a rock and punctured his front right tyre and lost much of his lead over former team-mate and Citroën DS3 WRC pilot Mikko Hirvonen.
Latvala persevered and that huge gap came in handy as he still managed to keep ahead of Hirvonen during the last two stages on day three.
“It feels like a heavy weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I’ve learned to stay calm when things go wrong and that paid dividends today. I knew Mikko would attack hard this morning so I was wide awake and ready for it. I had a comfortable lead before everything changed with just two stages to go, but I kept my cool,” Latvala said.
Try as he might, Hirvonen couldn’t match his former team-mate for pace and despite a big final effort on day three had to settle for second in light of the treacherous conditions that the snow and ice presented. “I wasn’t comfortable on the first stage, we made some changes to the set-up but I found the car difficult to drive on the narrow sections,” Hirvonen said.
Petter Solberg and Chris Patterson looked to bring Ford a double podium during the second round of 2012, but struck the same rock that lost Latvala so much time, allowing Mads Ostberg and Jonas Andersson to nab third overall in their Fiesta for the Adapta World Rally team.
Russian Evgeny Novikov and Frenchman Denis Giraudet did well to place fifth for the M-Sport team, especially considering that they had the eight-time world champion Sébastien Loeb breathing down their necks, but they managed to keep the title-defender at bay for the majority of the rally.
“I have rarely driven on stages as unpleasant as those here. Obviously, it’s very slippery but there are also large rocks everywhere, so it’s difficult to push hard without taking huge risks,” said Loeb. “I can’t be happy with the result, but we managed to do the main thing, which was to achieve the best possible point scoring in the circumstance.”
The WRC camp now crosses the Atlantic Ocean and heads to Mexico for the thrid round of the season for what is arguably the first tough test of the year. With the Ford team now second in the manufacturers championship standings behind Citroën (who is only 10 points ahead) expect the competition to heat up properly as the teams jostly for position in the early stages of the 2012 WRC season.
Rally Mexico happens in León from 8-11 March.
Results
1. Jari-Matti Latvala (Ford): 3h18m28.3s
2. Mikko Hirvonen (Citroen): + 16.6s
3. Mads Ostberg (Adapta Ford): + 38.8s
4. Petter Solberg (Ford): + 1m14.3s
5. Evgeny Novikov (M-Sport Ford): + 2m41.4s
6. Sebastien Loeb (Citroen): + 2m55.1s
7. Henning Solberg (Go Fast Ford): + 3m49.5s
8. Patrik Sandell (Mini): + 5m08.9s
9. Martin Prokop (Czech Ford): + 5m30.0s
10. Eyvind Brynildsen (Adapta Ford): + 6m27.2s
Standings
1. Citroen Total World Rally Team: 65
2. Ford Wold Rally Team: 55
3. M-Sport Ford World Rally Team: 28
4. Mini WRC Team: 26
5. Qatar World Rally Team: 8
1. Sébastien Loeb: 39
2. Mikko Hirvonen: 32
3. Petter Solberg: 29
4. Jari-Matti Latvala: 26
5. Evgeny Novikov: 21
6. Dani Sordo: 18
7. Mads Ostberg: 15
8. François Delecour: 8
9. Henning Solberg: 6
10. Pierre Campana: 6
