As such he had a pretty lonely event and while he still set some very good times, including 11 in the top three, he had no reason to push to the max. Mikko's third place though, combined with Gronholm's win was enough for
BP Ford to extends its lead over Citroen in the manufacturers', from 41 points to 46.
Subaru's
Chris Atkinson took P4, overhauling
Jari-Matti Latvala's
Stobart Ford in the final ‘proper' test of the event. The Aussie had finished the first day 7.8 seconds up on Latvala, but lost out on day 2 in SS6 and eventually ended up 10 seconds adrift. A charge on the final day though saw him cut the gap and in the end he came out ahead by 4.6 seconds.
Citroen's #2 driver, Dani Sordo was next up in sixth, after a solid if unspectacular performance. Sordo was only 4.1 seconds behind Latvala at the end of Friday's leg, but was unable to keep up with the Finn and Atkinson on days 2 and 3. Consequently he finished more than a minute back.
Petter Solberg had to make do with seventh, after yet another torrid event in which he was less than happy with his Impreza WRC car pretty much throughout. On Friday the Norwegian complained of handling problems and despite the best efforts of his mechanics overnight still wasn't pleased on Saturday. Although he did set some good times - excluding the super specials, he was more often than not at the wrong end of the top ten.
Suzuki's Junior Rally Championship star,
Urmo Aava took the final drivers' point in eighth in his privately entered Mitsubishi Lancer WRC05 and the Estonian had every right to be pleased.
Stobart Ford duo,
Henning Solberg and
Matthew Wilson completed the top ten, and while the former took the final manufacturers' point, he threw away the chance to get any drivers' points on day 2, when he hit a bank in SS8 and then had to stop twice to clear mud from the radiator of his Focus. As a result he lost over 6 minutes, tumbling from 8th to 10th. Although he got back in front of Wilson on the final day, the damage had been done.
Outside of the top ten, Munchi's Ford's
Federico Villagra was eleventh, followed by OMV Kronos Citroen's Manfred Stohl.
Stohl lost time on day 1 when he went off the road in SS4 and was unable to re-join. He re-started under the SupeRally on Saturday and then used the remainder of the event to fine-tune the set-up on his Xsara WRC, ahead of the other two gravel events in Japan and GB.
