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World champions BP-Ford end season with 1-2 in Rally GB

Staff, Monday December 3, 2007.

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FIA World Rally champions* BP-Ford ended the 2007 campaign in perfect style by claiming first and second on Rally GB in Wales.

Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen led from start to finish to score their third victory of the season in a Ford Focus RS World Rally Car.

Marcus Gronholm

Marcus Grönholm – retiring this year.

Team-mates Marcus Grönholm and Timo Rautiainen were second in another Focus RS on their 150th and final WRC start before retirement.

It was the eighth victory of the season for BP-Ford World Rally Team, which clinched its second consecutive manufacturers’ world title on the previous round in Ireland last month, and Ford’s first 1-2 finish in GB since 1979. The 212 points scored in the manufacturers’ series is the highest in Ford’s WRC history.

“To end my career in a team like this is a wonderful feeling.”

During the 16 rallies spanning five continents on surfaces as diverse as snow, dry asphalt and rough gravel, the Focus RS has been a model of reliability.

On a championship acknowledged as the toughest for production-based cars, the team has not suffered a single retirement due to mechanical problems after more than 5600km of flat-out competition.

This 16th and final round of the series was characterised by awful weather. Torrential rain and thick fog on Friday’s opening leg reduced drivers to first gear in places as the visibility dropped to just a handful of metres. Although the fog disappeared, heavy rain continued throughout the second and third legs to leave the gravel forest roads in south Wales in treacherous condition.

Drivers covered a total of 17 speed tests covering 359.54km.

Hirvonen took the lead on Friday’s opening stage and built a comfortable advantage as Grönholm and arch-rival Sébastien Loeb concentrated on a tactical battle for the drivers’ title.

The 27-year-old Finn preserved his lead throughout the three-day event, despite going off the road on the final special stage this afternoon, to win by 15.2sec. He finished third in the drivers’ championship.

"To finish the season with a victory is the best possible preparation for 2008," he said.

"For me to stand on the podium with Sébastien Loeb, winner of four world titles, and Marcus Grönholm, one of the sport’s greatest-ever drivers, at the end of such a fantastic season is perfect. It was Marcus’ final rally but I wasn’t tempted to give him the win. I know him well and he would not have wanted it that way. To finish the year with three wins is so much more than I thought at the start of the season."

"I made things exciting on the final stage when I went off the road and nearly got stuck in a ditch. I’m glad we made it through the weekend in really difficult conditions and I’m pleased for the team that we could end the season with a superb result like this," added Hirvonen.

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