Consequently, Wilson gave Jari-Matti Latvala green light for his first win of the season, while Hirvonen had to settle for the runner-up spot. Five months later, those two points would have made all the difference in the world for the latter, as it could have secured him his maiden WRC title in career.
However, looking back at what happened in Sardegna, Wilson insisted that he would have done the same thing all over again. First of all, Latvala needed a good result in order to recover from his trouble-full start of the season, and secondly, there were several other places where Hirvonen could have closed the gap on Loeb, but something went wrong and the team failed to help the Finn.
“We came here leading the world championship with one thing to do: to beat Sebastien Loeb. Even after Sardinia we never thought we'd be in that position. If I had my time again, I wouldn't change anything about Sardinia,” said Wilson, according to Autosport website.
“The decision we took in Sardinia was needed at the time, we felt that would give Jari the confidence boost he needed. Look at the results since then and we have become a lot stronger team. We got ourselves into a position to fight for the manufacturers' championship, which after five rallies was looking like we had absolutely no chance,” added the Ford team principal.
Hirvonen also admitted that he didn't over-analyzed the situation too much, revealing that he has no regrets over what happened earlier in the season. Just as emphasized by Wilson, the Finn admitted that he wasn't in any position to challenge Loeb for the title at the time.
“At least our team played it fair and square all year and I'm proud of that. There's no way we can change that anymore and I don't want to. In the end we both had the same chances when we came to this rally and he was faster. End of story,” added Hirvonen.
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