Barry Clark clinched his fourth consecutive victory in the Fiesta SportingTrophy International series [FSTi] on the Rally Finland this weekend, not that there was much competition in the Fiestas, as only three crews entered.
The first stage of the rally was the Super Special located at Killeri trotting track on the edge of the host town of Jyväskylä, where Clark beat fellow Fiesta crew Emre Yurdakul by the narrow margin of half a second. Although the Ford Rallye Sport Turkey team was not registered for FSTi points in Rally Finland, Yurdakul put in a notable performance to finish third in class N3 and 52nd in the overall WRC classification.
The action then switched to the forest roads west of the city early on Friday morning, where Clark took control until the first service. Lithuanian Vytautas Baranauskas stopped on Stage 2 to change a puncture and lost over three minutes to Clark. He had the misfortune to receive another puncture at the end of the next stage, but only dropped 8.5 seconds on this occasion. After the cancellation of Stage 4 following an accident, Clark arrived at midday service with a 3.5 minute lead over Baranauskas.
Baranauskas took his first championship stage wins on SS6 and SS7, beating Clark by 1.6 seconds and 7.5 seconds respectively in front of the tens of thousands of fans who had flocked to the forests near Jyväskylä. After a long day on the blisteringly fast gravel roads and roller-coaster jumps that characterise this event, Clark returned to service with just under 3.5 minutes over second-placed Baranauskas.
Yurdakul's first outing on Rally Finland was without incident and the young Turk got a real taste for the demanding Finnish stages.
Saturday was one of the longest days of competition seen in the WRC for many years. The nine stages covered 186.10 km, more than half the event's competitive distance. It was also one of the WRC's classic days, based on the smooth, wide and fast gravel roads south-west of the host town of Jyväskylä, where enormous crowds packed the forests in glorious sunshine to view the action.
![Barry Clark (GB) / Scott Martin (GB) Ford Fiesta ST [Pic credit: Fiesta Sporting Trophy International]. Rally d'Italia Sardegna, May 17-20 2007](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/325553.jpg)
