Hirvonen Wants to Beat Loeb By His Retirement

Mikko Hirvonen

This year's runner-up driver in the World Rally Championship Mikko Hirvonen insisted that he is happy with what he had accomplished during the past season in the series, despite losing the chance to become world champion by a single point.

The Finn revealed that he actually lost faith in his abilities to challenge Sebastien Loeb for the title, following the Frenchman's impressive start in the season. The Citroen driver won the first 5 rallies of the season and it seemed like the 2009 title would only be a question of points scored rather than beating his rivals, but the season progressed incredibly well for Hirvonen.

A runner-up spot in Italy, followed by 4 consecutive wins brought Hirvonen top of the table, holding a 5-point lead over the Frenchman. However, with the WRC going back to asphalt for the Catalonian event and Loeb's perfect run in Great Britain, Hirvonen had to admit defeat in the very penultimate special stage of the season (when he lost more than a minute to Loeb due to an unfortunate damage to his car's bonnet).

“It has been a great season, and an incredible turnaround to my season. I never thought it would go right to the end and okay, at the start of the season I thought we were experienced enough to fight for it, but it didn’t start well. Sebastien was winning all the rallies and then after Argentina I gave up,” admitted Hirvonen, according to the WRC official site.

“But then things went wrong for him and he made small mistakes and had problems so it gave us a chance to come back for the fight. So that was good and for sure it was a really exciting end for the season. But once again he was just a bit faster. I scored 11 podiums in 12 rounds, but I needed more wins,” added the Finn.

In addition, he announced his plan for the upcoming 2 years: beating Loeb until he retires. With the Frenchman on his way to signing a 2-year extension with Citroen, Hirvonen would therefore have at least 2 more chances of beating his rival for the title.

“My challenge is to beat Loeb before he retires. I've learned a lot this year and I will come back stronger and better next year,” concluded the Ford driver.