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WITH world champion Sebastien Loeb of Citroen retiring after a
spectacular crash on unlucky stage 13—and then getting ticketed by
Swedish police for speeding in the transport stage—22-year-old
Jari-Matti Latvala led to the podium a clean sweep of Ford Focus
cars and wrote history as the youngest winner of a world
championship race. Latvala hails from Finland, and thus, quite at
home in the treacherous conditions of Rally Sweden.
Latvala was not the only one who benefited from
Loeb’s retirement. Suzuki’s Toni Gardemeister finished seventh
to score two drivers’ points and three manufacturers’ points to
give his team its best result to date in the championship. Suzuki
joined the World Rally Championship only this year, joining Citroen,
Ford, Subaru and Skoda.
“I’m very happy to have scored my first
points for Suzuki after a tough three days,” said Gardemeister.
Latvala led the race starting on Friday’s
second stage. He finished 58 seconds clear of Ford teammate Mikko
Hirvonen. Another Focus driver—this time Gigi Galli of the Ford
Stobart team—took third place almost one-and-a-half minutes behind
Latvala.
Sweden was Latvala’s second podium finish,
having previously broken into the top three during the Rally Ireland
in November last year while piloting a Focus for Stobart, considered
Ford’s “B” team.
“I feel very comfortable now, this result has
given me a lot of self confidence and I’m really looking forward
to Mexico,” Latvala said, referring to the WRC’s race. Rally
Mexico is scheduled from February 28 to March 2.
Despite Loeb’s retirement, he lies in joint
second place in the championship standings, six points behind new
leader Hirvonen. Citroen’s team principal Olivier Quesnel said he
was confident his four-time world champion would be back on top
before too long.
“Sebastien’s retirement on the first day
showed that nothing can ever be taken for granted in motor sport,”
said Quesnel. “But I have every confidence in his ability.”
Like Citroen, Suzuki is also optimistic of their
chances in the next rallies. “There’s lots of development still
to do but I’m happy with the pace of the car, considering the fact
that we did comparatively little testing. By the end of the year,
I’m sure we will be a lot closer to the frontrunners,”
Gardemeister said.
Subaru’s Petter Solberg had a relatively good
race in Sweden—finishing fourth in the standings—considering the
Impreza he was driving was still last season’s model. The new
five-door Impreza hatchback supposed to be used in this year’s
championship is yet to pass homologation requirements of selling
2,000 units of the Impreza STI variant.
-- With reports from AFP
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