After blasting to an amazing third
Rally Finland win, Sebastian Loeb really has nothing else left to do
or any more achievable records to break. After all, he does have 8
World Championships, 73 wins, 109 podiums, 853 individual stage wins
(including the Tour de Corse in 2005 when he won every single stage).
What also makes Loeb even more
astounding is the simple fact he completed this year's Rally Finland
at an average speed of 122.9 km/h, without making a single error. Not
one. It is said that even the greatest drivers who have graced the
Finnish stages have made some error along the route of the rally
every year (Colin McRae was never done crashing in Finland), but Loeb
didn't make one this year.
Citroen's rally was about as perfect as
it could be, with Loeb's team-mate Mikko Hirvonen taking second
place. He completed the rally 6.1 secs behind Loeb, but he never lead
the rally at any stage. Citroen's success apparently came from a
revolutionary discovery in their suspension design, interesting
because Ford's happy hunting ground used to be Finland, now they may
have no hope of success anywhere.
Jari-Matti Latvala took the final
podium spot in third for the Blue Oval, albeit 35 secs off of the
lead. Petter Solberg, another of the pre-event favourites took
fourth, 56.1 secs away from the lead. Traction problems early on in
the rally lost them lots of time, time which is nigh-on impossible to
regain in Finland.
Mads Ostberg continued his consistent
run of finishes with a fine fifth place. Ostberg has managed to
finish every rally he has entered this year, more than can be said
for the Ford works team. Ott Tanak had a relatively quiet run to
sixth place in his M-Sport Ford Fiesta RS WRC. A puncture was Tanak's
only major gripe throughout the rally.
Matti Rantanen's excellent run at home
netted him a fine seventh place. Jari Ketomaa was dogged by a misfire
that would not clear itself on on Friday, but still took eighth in
his Autotek Motorsport Ford Fiesta RS WRC. Rounding out the Top 10
were Martin Prokop and Sebastian Ogier. Prokop carried a special
message on the rear spoiler of his Fiesta WRC for Bohuslav Ceplecha,
Martin Semerad's co-driver who was tragically killed last month in
his home country. Ogier was slowed by a front suspension failure in
his VW Motorsport entered Skoda Fabia S2000 early on Leg 2.
As ever with any rally, and most
notoriously Rally Finland, there were a good few drivers who didn't
survive all of the 18 stages. Evgney Novikov spectacularly crashed
his Fiesta, rolling twice. His co-driver Denis Giraudet was in a bit
of pain after a heavy landing on Friday's first stage. Nevertheless,
he battled on, with Novikov taking it easy over the rough parts and
big jumps, they made it to the finish in 36th position.
Chris Atkinson made his return to the
Finnish stages after 4 years away in the place of Nasser Al Attiyah
(who was competing in the Olympics and claimed a bronze medal in the
skeet shooting section). Driving a Citroen DS3 WRC, the Aussie boldly
announced his intention to take a Top 5 position. He could well have
done, had he not missed a pace note, got beached on a tree stump and
then later hit a rock. The fact he has only started 3 World Rallies
in the past 3 years goes to show that he still has plenty left to
offer the WRC.
Ken Block didn't survive to the finish
neither, but he ran inside the points up until SS14 when he lost his
steering after a heavy landing in his Fiesta RS WRC. Impressive,
considering it was his first time in Finland and only his third event
of the year. Ari Vatanen offered to buy the Gymkhana star dinner if
he managed to best Vatanen's result of 11th place, claimed
on the WRC legend's final appearance at the top level. Anybody who
said that Block wasn't able to cut it at the top of the rallying tree
should take his Rally Finland 2012 into account before coming off
with such a statement in the future.
PG Andersson moved to the top of the
S-WRC standings with an excellent victory in the class of Rally
Finland. Second was Yazeed Al-Rajhi with the second works PROTON of
Juha Salo in third, which could have been second had he not damaged a
wheel on SS14.
The final results don't really tell the
tale of the entire rally. Up until the penultimate test, Irish hero
Craig Breen commanded a 13.3 sec lead over Andersson. Marking his
return to the S-WRC after the tragic death of his former co-driver
and best friend Gareth Roberts in Italy, Breen had driven a faultless
rally until his crash on the penultimate stage. Both Breen and
stand-in co-driver Paul Nagle were fine.
Breen said: “I’m very disappointed
to have crashed out so close to the end. The most important thing is
that Paul and I are okay. Up to that stage I was really pleased with
my performance. I showed a good pace without pushing too hard. I want
to thank my whole team, my family and Gareth’s family for their
support during this time and special thanks to Paul; he has come in
under unbelievable circumstances and done a brilliant job.”
“It’s a sad feeling but I want to
thank all the people who have given me the courage to get here. I
never thought I’d be in a rally car again, let alone [with this
performance]. I congratulate P-G on his win after a great drive over
three days.”
Nagle himself was impressed with
Breen's rally, saying: “Craig drove exceptionally well, his courage
and commitment after everything that has happen is astounding and his
driving has been outstanding.”
In the WRC Academy, Elfyn Evans took a
sensational win over the high speed Finnish stages to launch himself
into the lead of the Driver's table. Pontus Tiedemand took second
after winning all of the Saturday stages that the WRC Academy runners
completed. Third went to Brendan Reeves. It was shaping up to be a
close finish between Reeves and Timo van der Marel going into the
final stages, but van der Marel crashed on the first run of the
Ouninpohja stage.
Championship leader Alastair Fisher
suffered from throttle problems and was forced to restart under Rally
2 rules. He finished ninth and now sits 21 points behind Evans, the
championship leader.
