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motorsport-news.co.uk FEBRUARY 15 2012 3

HEADLINE NEWS

How Ford’s Finn used intelligence to haul himself back into the WRC race

LATVALA : ‘I CAN HANDLE THE PRESSURE’

Photos: mcklein-imagedatabase.com

POINTS

FIAWorld Rally Championship After two of 13 rounds POS DRIVER POINTS

1 Sébastien Loeb 39pts 2 Mikko Hirvonen 32 3 Petter Solberg 29 4 Jari-Matti Latvala 26 5 Evgeny Novikov 21 6 Dani Sordo 18

situation this year as when Marcus won in 2006 and 2007.”

Loeb hits a low point Latvala’s success was boosted by what was a troubled weekend for world champion Sébastien Loeb on the Scandinavian snow. Sweden is historically Loeb’s weakest event and his sixth place meant that he lost much of the advantage that he built up by taking amaximum score of 28 on Rally Monte Carlo. Despite not having the natural experience and speed that Scandinavian drivers enjoy on home territory, Loeb had run amongst the leaders in the early stages. But an off into a snowbank on Friday, a spin on Saturday morning and a puncture on Saturday afternoon ended his hopes of a podium finish. The Frenchman was able to recover into the top six, but was unable to progress any further. However, Loeb was unconcerned at the ground lost to the Ford drivers and fully expects to bounce back on the next round in Mexico, a rally where he pressured Sébastien Ogier into a crash to take a dramatic victory last year.

“We just tried to stay in front of Henning [Solberg in seventh] and we couldn’t expect muchmore than that,” said Loeb, who turns 38 next week. “We didn’t think we could get muchmore than that sixth place. There was a chance we could try to catch fifth place but we lost some time again on Saturday we decided there was no point trying to push for that.

“The most important thing is that we scored some points, 11 points, which is important for the championship.”

Ford man Latvala used tactics to beat Citroën’s Hirvonen

LATVALAVS HIRVONEN

(seconds)

IFFERENCE

TIME D

36 34 32 30 28 26 24 22 20 18 16 14 12 10

8 6 4 2 0 2 4

KEY

LATVALA HIRVONEN

Ford ace Jari-Matti Latvala used tactics to press home his superior speed over the latter half of Rally Sweden and his former team-mate, Citroën’s Mikko Hirvonen, was unable to live with the hot pace

Hirvonen struggles as tyres lose studs on gravel-heavy stage

Latvala pushes to gain advantage on Sagen stage

Hirvonen recoups some time, but not all of it as tyres wear down

Latvala restores advantage on icy one-mile superspecial

Front-right puncture destroys much of Latvala’s lead

Maximum attack restores some of Latvala’s advantage

Third on Power Stage secures Latvala victory

Latvala pushes on as Hirvonen flounders in fresh snow

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