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Saturday, 1st December 2007

Toshi Arai is the 2007 PWRC champion.

Toshi Arai has won the 2007 FIA Production Car World Rally Championship title after Gabriel Pozzo - the only man that was still in contention heading into this weekend's Rally GB, was forced to withdraw.

Arai, who has had to sit out the final two PWRC events in Ireland and GB, as he had already taken in his six-nominated events, has had an anxious wait since the Rally Japan at the end of October, however in the end his 39-point haul will prove sufficient to give him his second PWRC title, to add to the one he took in 2005.

Pozzo went out on Friday in SS5, while running sixth overall. The off damaged the suspension on his Mitsubishi Lancer and although he was classified at the end of day 1, albeit in 17th place overall and more than 10 minutes of the PWRC leader, he was not able to re-start on Saturday under the SupeRally.

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He needed to win this weekend though to take the title and even if he had rejoined he would have needed a miracle to make up such a deficit.

"It was always going to be very difficult to win the championship," Pozzo told mitsubishi-motors.com. "But the weather and the conditions have been so tough here.

“Okay, we have some fog in Argentina, but the difficulty for me has been to get the notes right.

“In the fog, when you can't see where you are going, it is really hard. When we drive in the recce, there was no fog.

“So you are able to see there is a jump here or something in the road there, but then on the rally it is impossible to see this. This rally has been a very difficult challenge for me in my first time here."

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