Story: Evan Rothman
Picture: Eva Kovkova
For a Finnish rally driver to spray the winners’ champagne at this event is not uncommon. For a non-Scandinavian, in fact, to win here is rare. However, with the 2010 World Rally Championship dominated by the Frenchman Sebastien Loeb and his Citroen C4 WRC, this weekend’s victory by Jari-Matti Latvala and his Ford Focus RS WRC was as hard-fought and well deserved as it was unlikely.
Finland’s ultra-fast and specialised rally roads are hallowed as the spiritual home of this sport we all love. The 310km of speed tests that are comprised of blind crests that often result in 35m-long jumps, beautifully cambered corners that tease drivers to attack with even more aggression on the second pass, and the hundreds of thousands of spectators that line the rally stages. For this year, organisers compacted the rally into two days and these two days were amongst Finland’s hottest days in over 80 years. With a little over 12 hours of seat time per day for the crews, concentration was key to success (and survival) at this the fastest rally on the WRC calendar.
It is also these same characteristics for which this event is feared. Rally Finland demands the utmost respect: a few centimetres off the racing line and one’s rally almost always ends in spectacular fashion. To reach the end of this event, apart from the necessary extra-large set of kahunas, driver need to strictly obey and trust their pace notes and co-drivers need to have confidence in their notes…
The 2010 edition of this rally, celebrating its 60th anniversary, produced one of the most enthralling and captivating battles of the World Rally Championship’s season thus far. The condensed rally programme (with stages held over two days instead of the traditional three) further intensified this battle as crews had to endure 12-hour days of in the cockpit. The 19 speed tests were ticked off in quick succession, and the short breaks between the thrilling stages added to the sense of drama that permeated the forests around Jyvaskyla.
BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team’s blue-eyed boy wonder Mikko Hirvonen and co-driver Jarmo Lehtinen set the early pace ahead of teammates Jari-Matti Latvala and Miika Anttila and a gaggle of Citroen C4 WRCs lead by privateer Petter Solberg and hris Patterson. The ceremonial Super Special Stage, as a foretaste of the coming weekend’s events, sure did provide rally fans with enthralling action.
The rally proper got under way early Friday morning under clear skies. With weather not expected to play a part in the weekend’s activities, it was precisely why this journalist paid attention to the skies. Taking his SSS momentum through to Day One proper of WRC Rally Finland, Hirvonen set mighty impressive stage times through the morning’s opening loop of stages. At the beginning of SS4, He had eked out a lead of 4,9sec over Petter Solberg and the chasing pack. Remember, this is the Finnish “Grand Prix” where drivers scrap over tenths of seconds…
Entering his (former) favourite corner in WRC, Hirvonen crashed spectacularly: he rolled his Ford Focus five times after clipping a bank after a flat-out right hand kink jump, ending his rally. The car was heavily damaged and the spectators at the scene were hushed in silence as they awaited the crew to emerge from the wreck of Ford metal and carbon fibre. Fortunatley, Hirvonen and Lehtinen were uninjured.
Not for a second did the battle at the front of the rally ease, for Petter Solberg grabbed the lead of the rally and went about trying to create a cushion between himself and Petter Solberg, Sebastien Ogier et al. Latvala, now with not only the weight of Ford on his shoulders but with Finland, went about setting two quick stages times to move into the lead on SS6.
Dani Sordo, driving for the Citroen Junior Team this weekend, showed great potential on the gravel surface as he chased after the lead, dropping Petter slipped to third place as the heat of the battle stepped up. Sebastien Ogier (driving in the Citroen Total World Rally Team) and teammate Sebastien Loeb were slowed somewhat by their duties as road sweepers on Day One, but were never more than 40sec off the lead and could never be discounted for a win this early in a rally.
Henning Solberg, sixth-placed in his Stobart M-Sport Ford Rally Team Focus RS WRC, also crashed heavily into the woods too. Another Ford driver to not find Lady Luck in Finland’s forests was Khalid Al-Qassimi, as he also rolled out of the event on SS6.
Never one to disregard the pace of the defending World Rally Champions, it was with astonishment that I saw Loeb and Elena’s stage time for SS10. They had set a new stage record for the event!
The rain clouds that were building on Day One did unleash a few buckets of rain onto the gravel roads, but didn’t transform the roads into muddy passageways. The rain, in fact, seemed to play into the hands of Latvala in the morning as it provided his car’s tyres with extra traction as he was Car Number One on road.
With all eyes on the Iceman, Kimi Raikkonen, on his home event, the Finnish motorsport superstar crashed in SS12. Fortunately for him and birthday boy co-driver (who also celebrated his day with Mikko Hirvonen’s 30th birthday) Kaj Lindstrom, they were able to get moving. They lost nine minutes in total while they waited for spectators to help them back onto the road.
The second stage of the day, SS13, saw Ogier moved ahead of Petter Solberg. Ogier only needed 15,2sec to close to the leader. Ogier, feeling comfortable in his car setup, set a succession of quick stage times to find himself in a rather secure second overall and with the feeling he could attack for the lead. Olivier Quesnel, team boss of Citroen Racing, instead wanted Ogier to consolidate his position as they thought Solberg would attack Latvala for the lead. Meanwhile, Loeb was gaining more momentum and edging ever closer to third place, to lie 8,6sec adrift of Solberg at the end of SS13.
Raikkonen’s day got even worse when he lost another 3min due to the damage his car sustained in SS12; his car was running on two badly damaged tyres, and with only one spare on board he was forced to finish SS13 with only three inflated tyres.
The legendary and iconic SS14, which saw Marcus Gronholm so famously pin his right foot flat to the accelerator pedal for an astonishing 46sec of Finnish madness, was won by another Finn and this stage too will go down in the history books. Latvala stormed to take the scratch time by a staggering 7,3sec from his hard charging rivals, bowling over the Citroen lads with his turn of speed.
Ogier, rally winner in Portugal, responded in the very next stage to close the gap from 22,5sec to 16,1sec. Latvala slowed his pace in this tricky stage, especially over that “Novikov Jump” now so named after the Russian went maximum attack over a blind rise to see the front end of his Citroen C4 WRC in 2009 flip nearly vertically before landing on its wheels once more to continue through the stage.
Loeb also pushed hard, closing to within 1,3sec of Solberg. Moving onto the podium for Loeb seemed inevitable.
It was in the next stage that Solberg lost his third place to Loeb, but the Norwegian was not to be discarded just yet… Through SS17, a nice battle for sixth place was developing between Mads Ostberg (Subaru Impreza WRC) and Matthew Wilson (Stobart M-Sport Ford Focus RS WRC), but Wilson managed to hang onto this position to the finish line.
Latvala showed his grit and determination to win in the penultimate stage: he grabbed the stage victory to all but clinch the rally win. With Ogier a little further than 12 seconds adrift, only a mechanical gremlin would bar the Finn from taking his second win of the 2010 season.
Ogier set the quickest stage time through SS19, the rally’s last, but was unable to reel in the 10,1sec to Latvala. In only his seventh Rally Finland start, Latvala took victory, Latvala is also the youngest ever to win this prestigious event!
OVERALL CLASSIFICATION
01) J-M. Latvala/M. Anttila
Ford Focus RS WRC – 02h 31m 29.6s
02) S. Ogier/J. Ingrassi
Citroen C4 WRC + 10.1s
03) S. Loeb/D. Elena
Citroen C4 WRC + 26.0s
04) P. Solberg/C. Patterson
Citroen C4 WRC + 30.7s
05) D. Sordo/M. Marti
Citroen C4 WRC + 01m 45.0s
06) M. Wilson/S. Martin
Ford Focus RS WRC + 05m 43.7s
07) M. Ostberg/J. Andersson
Subaru Impreza WRC + 05m 50.8s
08) J. Kankkunen/J. Repo
Ford Focus RS WRC + 07m 49.0s
09) J. Hanninen/M. Markkula
Skoda Fabia S2000 + 09m 05.0s
10) P-G. Andersson/A. Fredriksson
Skoda Fabia S2000 + 10m 15.7s
Drivers’ Championship:
01) S. Loeb – 166 pts
02) S. Ogier – 118 pts
03) J-M. Latvala – 105 pts
04) P. Solberg – 90 pts
05) M. Hirvonen – 86 pts
06) D. Sordo – 77 pts
07) M. Wilson – 48 pts
08) F. Villagra – 26 pts
09) H. Solberg – 25 pts
10) M. Ostberg – 16 pts
Manufacturers’ Championship:
01) Citroen Total – 265 pts
02) BP Ford Abu Dhabi – 210 pts
03) Citroen Junior – 155 pts
04) Stobart M-Sport Ford – 108 pts
05) Munchi’s – 40 pts