Matt had started the day over 20 seconds behind, but in the end beat the Argentine to P4 by just 2.5 seconds. The Englishman was the only driver in the top eight to make any progress on the final day.
It is his best WRC result to date and the youngster was rightly pleased: “I'm so happy with this fourth place. It has been a fantastic day,” he noted post-SS27.
Companc was also buoyant despite having missed out on fourth. Like Matt it was the Argentine's best ever finish in a WRC event: “We lost one position but I'm happy anyway because we had an interesting day and a good fight. It's more fun to compete,” he stated.
Of the rest, Manfred Stohl had to settle for sixth in his OMV Kronos-run
Citroen Xsara WRC. The Austrian lost over 2 minutes on Saturday when he had mechanical problems in SS14. That dropped him behind Wilson and Companc and he was powerless to recover on day 3.
“We had fun on the stages but unfortunately our car wasn't fast enough to fight against the two Ford's,” he noted.
Federico Villagra was next up in seventh in the #2 Munchi's car, while Mitsubishi Lancer Evo runner, Katsuhiko Taguchi took the final ‘senior' WRC point in eighth - and he also secured the overall Group N win as well.
Of the others Subaru team leader,
Petter Solberg finished just inside the top twenty, after retiring on day 1 with gear selection problems.
Latvala and Xavier Pons also got to the end thanks to the SupeRally but were a lot further down the leader-board, in 25th and 35th place respectively.
Latvala did come away with something though following his storming performance on day 1 and he inherited the final manufacturers' point when Seb retired in SS26. After having been in line for a podium finish though it was only a small consolation for the
Stobart Ford man.
Subaru's
Chris Atkinson was the other big retiree, following a big crash in SS6 on Friday. He was not classified, like Gronholm and Seb.
![Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen celebrate their victory. Rally Japan 2007. [PIC CREDIT: FORD / www.worldrallypics.com]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/393410.jpg)
