WRC – Rally Finland : Local Hero Latvala Secures Dream Victory
Jari-Matti Latvala secured his 2nd win of the season after an intense battle with Sebastien Ogier throughout the final stages.
Jari-Matti Latvala and co-driver Miikka Anttila celebrates their well deserved victory in Rally Finland.
Latvala has never won his home rally, but by winning this year he breaks the record as the youngest Rally Finland winner. The previous record was held by another Finn, Markku Alen. Latvala’s win ended Citroen’s run of 2 successive back to back victory.
Sebastien Ogier was promoted to the Citroen main team as Loeb’s teammate before Rally Finland.
Ogier pushed hard to close the gap to Latvala on the final stages, but the gap proved too big for him. In the end, he had to settle for 2nd with a gap of 10.1 seconds behind the winner.
Sebastien Loeb (above) finished in 3rd place, snatching the final podium from Petter Solberg in SS16 with only 3 stages left to the finish. Solberg was only 4.7 seconds behind Loeb after SS19, the final stage of the day.
Dani Sordo in his debut with the Citroen Junior team finished in 6th place ahead of Team Stobart’s Matthew Wilson (above). His teammate Kimi Raikkonen (below) had a weekend to forget after failing to score any championship.
4 times former WRC champion Juha Kankkunen in action.
Juha Kankkunen concluded the weekend with an impressive 8th place, one place behind Mads Ostberg. Not bad for a 51 year old.
Atmosphere, Rally New Zealand.
Loeb still leads the drivers championship standings with 166 points with 5 rounds to go. Loeb’s main challenger, teammate Ogier is 2nd with 118 points. Latvala moved up to 3rd in the rankings with 105 points. WRC heads to Germany for the 9th round of the championship on the 20th – 22nd of August, 2010.
Dani Sordo trying a hand in photography.
Photo : Citroen WRC, worldrallypics.com
