Neste Rally Finland Leg 3

Neste Rally Finland Leg 3
10th Round FIA WRC 2006
20 August 2006





Marcus Gronholm took an emphatic win on this weekend's Neste Oil Rally Finland, leading the event from the second stage, to mark the 50th win for a Finn in the history of the rally. Championship leader Sebastien Loeb finished second, having pushed Gronholm hard until he suffered a puncture and lost time on the second day, while Mikko Hirvonen completed the podium, in what he described as a dream result.

Prior to the event, the talk was of Loeb's chances of challenging for the win, on one of the three rallies has yet to tick off and the victory that would carry him into the record books, as the most successful driver in the history of the WRC.



Following a short superspecial at the Killeri trotting track on Thursday evening, the competition proper got going on Friday morning, amid heavy rain. Gronholm set the pace on the first three stages, with team-mate Mikko Hirvonen and Subaru's Petter Solberg clearly all revelling in the conditions. Loeb was fourth after the first loop of stages, but by a slim margin.

However, it was the fourth stage of the event where things would turn around; The rain began to fall just after Loeb started the stage, first on the road. Although Gronholm only dropped a handful of seconds, Loeb leap-frogged both Hirvonen and Solberg on that stage, to arrive at the first service just behind Gronholm in the overall standings.



And that, basically, is how the two leaders finished the event. The gap grew slightly on the second loop of stages when Loeb stalled at a tight hairpin but the main upset was on the second leg. Loeb had a puncture instantly when he hit a rock on the inside of a flat left-hander which wasn't in his notes. He had to complete the remaining 5km of the stage on the flat and dropped 30 seconds to Gronholm. At the end of the stage, he said that the fight for the win was over, since he didn't feel he would be able to close the now 40-second gap to the leader. He and Gronholm relaxed their pace from there on in and that's how they finished.



Behind them, Petter Solberg and Mikko Hirvonen were enjoying a good scrap on the first day, the Subaru team clearly having made progress with the Impreza WRC over the summer. Once Loeb had assumed second, Hirvonen and Solberg stayed well in touch with each other for the rest of the first leg and into the second day, which dawned damp but with no rain. They continued their fight until the first of the Ouninpohja stages. Solberg got sideways as he landed after one of the famous jumps and clipped a rock, launching his Impreza into a series of rolls, putting him out of the event.



Team-mate Chris Atkinson was also demonstrating the improved pace of the Impreza, with a series of strong stage times throughout the first day putting him fifth behind Solberg by the mid-point. However, he suffered a litany of problems from there on in, as his engine began to overheat towards the end of the first day and he lost all his gears except third on the second. Despite this, he remained upbeat and continued to demonstrate the team's gains on clean stages, eventually finishing the event 11th.



Henning Solberg was clearly enjoying his return to the WRC after an eleven-week lay-off since Greece. Despite a variety of brake problems, which started with a fluid leak at the rear, followed by losing the fronts and then another rear pipe failure, he brought his Peugeot 307 home in fourth place and was delighted with the result, matching his best result in the WRC so far.

One of the earlier battles looked like becoming the talk of the event, as Gigi Galli and Daniel Carlsson set about each other in a repeat of their performance in Sweden earlier in the year. They were separated by fractions of a second, until Galli spun later in the first day and couldn't decide which way he should be heading in the stage. This gave Carlsson useful breathing space but then, on the penultimate stage of the day, he went off the road, lost a wheel and retired, giving Galli a clean run.


(photo:vittoriosanguineti.it)

The irrepressible Italian complained all event of not finding the right balance between speed and safety, and once he was free of direct competition, he concentrated on developing his notes and brought his Pirelli-equipped and supported Peugeot 307 home in fifth place.

While Loeb was the only driver to realistically challenge Gronholm, his Kronos Total Citroen team-mates were having a tougher time. Both Dani Sordo and Xevi Pons were finding it difficult to establish a rhythm on the wet gravel stages. Sordo's chances were hampered when his windscreen wipers failed on the first day but the second day was better, on dry stages and he was up to fifth by the mid-point. However, his event was to end sooner than he wanted, as he took off over a jump and landed off the road and on a rock. Both crew were unhurt but that was the end of their Xsara WRC. Xevi Pons had already retired by this point, rolling on the same stage as Petter Solberg,


(photo: MMSP)

There was a good local derby developing between Jussi Valimaki in a Mitsubishi Lancer WRC and Janne Tuohino in a Citroen Xsara. Both were taking a while to come to terms with the best way to drive their respective cars but were exceptionally close throughout the event. In the end, Tuohino would just edge Valimaki out by less than a minute by the end of the event.



Jan Kopecky was having a tough rally in his privately-entered Skoda Fabia WRC. He suffered gearbox problems throughout the first day on his first attempt at the event. However, he kept his calm and spent the rest of the rally gaining experience and was rewarded with eighth place overall and a driver point.

Manfred Stohl finished the event in ninth place, a result that didn't match his effort. He suffered from a faulty intercom early in the event and then damaged his suspension and lost five minutes in the process on the first leg, finding it difficult to get back into a rhythm after that. Matthew Wilson was another driver to suffer with tyres - he took a heavy landing on the first leg and the tyre came off the wheel immediately, meaning he and co-driver Michael Orr had to stop and change the wheel. He then spent the rest of the event gaining experience and fine-tuning his notes on one of the toughest events in the calendar for a driver competing the first time. He went on to finish tenth.



In Group N, there was an excellent battle developing between Anton Alen, son of Markku and Patrik Flodin, both in Group N Subarus. They traded stage times throughout the event, swapping position more times than you could count. However, on the penultimate stage of the event, Flodin went into a ditch and had a spin, which cost him 40 seconds and his fight for the lead. He went on to finish behind Alen, with Juha Hakkinen third and Jouko Tiri fourth.


(story and photo:wrc.com, unless specified)