Latvala Takes Maiden Win in Sweden

Well, what a Swedish. All of the pre-rally expectations went out of the window and there were sone distinctly unexpected results. Except one. In our preview, we tipped Jari-Matti Latvala for the event win. We did wonder whether we had lost sense of reality ... but sure enough, Latvala took the lead early one and kept it to the end.

The two Citroens lost their chance of victory on the first day, with Dani Sordo picking up a penalty and Sebastien Loeb crashing out of his 100th WRC event on the fourth stage. Subaru were the main beneficiaries, moving into second in the manufacturers' table - equal with the Ford factory team.

Leg 1

The Uddeholm Swedish Rally got under way with a run round the Karlstad Super-Special. Petter Solberg has always been a super-special specialist and, in Sweden, he pulled out the stops to fly through the opening stage half a second faster than the rest. Jari-Matti Latvala was second, Mikko Hirvonen third and champion leader Loeb fourth - just over a second off the pace. The stage result was inconsequential, though. The real rally would start the following morning.

As the crews headed out to the stages, temperatures had risen and, although there was ice to be found, what snow there was was soft, and that ice we mentioned was thin. So, as soon as the cars put the power down, the ice gave way and the crews were down to the gravel.

The snow banks were also unreliable and, as more than a few discovered, leaning on them into a bend no longer bounced you back onto the track ... the banks would give way and the car would fly right through. It was a soft snowbank that accounted for championship leader Loeb. He went off on the second stage of the morning. There was a remote service right after but, with limited time and facilities, there was no way he could make anything other than a nominal effort at getting to the remaining four stages.

Jari-Matti Latvala had no worries - fastest on both of the morning stages and, after the break, winning all of the remaining forest stages. He backed off a little for the super-special, letting Gigi Galli through to win the stage. At the end of the day, then, Latvala had taken the lead - and a lead of over 48 seconds to his lead driver Mikko Hirvonen. He would, though, have to survive another two days of treacherous conditions.

Leg 2

There were six stages on the Saturday run. With both of the Citroen C4s refettled, Sebastien Loeb and Dani Sordo tried to show what might have been by setting the top two times on a foggy Horssjon 1. A tremendous stage for young Andreas Mikkelsen - even taking a favourable road position into account, third fastest in his private Focus WRC was something to be proud of.

Sordo took the second stage of the day, but Loeb was only fourth behind Latvala and Henning Solberg. Seb bounced back on the first run through Vargasen. The Frenchman took more than 9 seconds out of Latvala. But, lying 24 minutes down the leaderboard, it was academic. As they drew into mid-day service, Jari-Matti had drawn out another five seconds over Mikko.

Horssjon 2 was cancelled, leaving only two stages in the afternoon. Sordo won the first, Hirvonen the second. But Latvala was second quickest on both .. keeping his lead for the second night.

Leg 3

Another six stages on this, the final, day of the rally. Narrower and twistier, it would be hard for anyone to make a significant attack on the Sunday stages. Jari-Matti Latvala had to deefend his lead for another 97 stage kilometers. He lost 7 seconds to Henning Solberg on the first stage, but a fairer metric would be to compare him with Mikko Hirvonen - the two Fords were running together on the road. There was only one-thenth of a second between the to Fords. Henning also took Lesjofors but Latvala was flying - around five seconds quicker than Hirvonen. Another second quicker on the final stage of the morning loop saw Jari-Matti enter service almost a minute ahead of his team leader.

After service, the crews ran through the same three stages again. Well, they should ... but the first of the three was cancelled. The first passage had done a fair amount of damage and the organisers couldn't let the cars go a second time. Just two tests were left between Latvala and his first WRC victory. A dangerous stage of affairs if the driver let the pressure get to him. With two minutes between the factory Fords and third-placed Gigi Galli, it was time to ease off. Sure enough, he eased the Focus through the stages to get safely to the end of Rammen 2. His first WRC win - and he became the youngest ever winner of a WRC rally. At 22 years old, he was two years younger than the late, and much missed, Henri Toivonen who won the Lombard RAC rally (Rally GB) in 1980. But Toivonen never got the chance to take a WRC title. With safer cars these days, Jari-Matti will have his golden shot!

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