Petter Solberg had warned Sebastien Ogier before the World Rally Championship’s final event, Wales Rally GB, that his 2nd place standing in the driver’s championship was not necessarily safe. It turns out Solberg was absolutely right. While Loeb claimed his 62nd WRC win, the big news was Solberg, as he challenged him all weekend for the top spot. Solberg was very impressive, especially considering some of the problems he faced, but Loeb was able to hold him off.
Sebastien Loeb claims his 62nd WRC Victory at Wales Rally GB
Solberg’s Citroen suffered gearbox issues on Day 1 which cost him the opening day lead. Solberg said that the issues cost him at least 10-15 seconds. “When we wanted first it would go to fourth for example and when you can’t trust the car it’s difficult to push properly.” Solberg’s co-driver Patterson said, ““On the second Sweet Lamb stage the car actually stopped because we had no gears.” Solberg also drove the first day without a starter motor, which caused him to drive more cautiously and make sure the car kept running.
Petter Solberg drives to a 2nd place finish at WRC Rally GB
Solberg finished day 1 just 1.8 seconds behind the rally leader Loeb. Solberg kept the gap with Loeb close all weekend, but Loeb was able to keep it and finished the event with a 19 second advantage. “To beat the factory team is bloody difficult but I have done my best and pushed really hard,” said Solberg. Loeb praised Solberg saying, “It was really tough and Petter was really fast from the start doing very few mistakes. It was a difficult battle but I took a lot of pleasure from the stages and really enjoyed this rally, which was definitely the longest battle I’ve had this season.”
Meanwhile, Ogier drove his Citroen C4 off the road on stage 8 and was forced to retire from the event. “I came too fast in corner and that was it,” said Ogier. “The car rolled once – but slowly – but now we are stuck and it’s impossible to restart. The conditions were as slippery as I expected them to be. I’m stupid.” The retirement ended up costing Ogier big in the driver’s points standings.
Ogier crashes his Citroen Rally car on stage 8 of Rally GB
Both Solberg and Latvala were in range of jumping Ogier in the driver’s standings and with Solberg’s 2nd place finish he did just that. Jari-Matti Latvala was able to battle his way up into 3rd place jumping his Ford teammate Mikko Hirvonen, who finished in 4th, on the final day. The 3rd place finish for Latvala was enough to keep him in front of Solberg and put him in 2nd in the driver’s points championship, pushing Ogier all the way down from 2nd to 4th.
Behind Hirvonen in 5th was Citroen Junior driver Dani Sordo, followed by Henning Solberg who was back in a Ford Focus RS for the final event after spending much of the middle part of the year driving a S2000 Ford Fiesta. Kimi Raikkonen shrugged off his unfortunate crash in the shakedown stage at Rally Espana to finish in 8th, behind Ford driver Matthew Wilson. Mads Ostberg, driving a Subaru STi Rally car finished in 9th.
U.S. driver Ken Block, suffered more mechanical issues when his Ford Focus suffered a broken axle on Saturday’s stages and he was forced to restart under Super Rally rules on Sunday. Block had earlier in the week crashed his Focus practicing at the Ford M-Sport training course and was forced to drive a different car for the event.
Rally GB marked the final event for the current class of rally cars. Next year will mark the new Super 2000 rules with the Fiesta replacing the Focus for Ford and the DS3 replacing the C4 for Citroen. Loeb’s co-driver Daniel Elena said of the C4, ““It’s a fantastic car and it’s a very good moment to have this victory in the last race with the C4. Now I hope the [new] DS3 is the same but next year is a new challenge and it won’t be easy.”
