Although he did have quite the accident-free start of the season he was expecting, Latvala came to Italy with the sole thought of bringing his team some points in the overall classification (for a change). What he did, in turn, was dominate the Sardegna rally from one end to another, managing to stay on top of the timing charts from Friday thru Sunday.
Although he was forced to open the roads on both Saturday and Sunday, Latvala got to the end of SS17 almost half of minute ahead of teammate Hirvonen. The first thing he did was thank team boss Malcolm Wilson for letting him push for the win. Two weeks ago, in Argentina, the safe-drive strategy picked by Wilson for Latvala caused him to finish the rally in 6th place.
“It’s such a relief! I want to say thanks to the team and to (team principal) Malcolm for letting me do this. It’s a great thing for me to win this rally and also for the team with a one, two. It’s been unbelievable, but I’ve been lucky too. I’ve made mistakes earlier this year, so this win has come at a very important time,” said Latvala.
Hirvonen congratulated his teammate for the win, while also joking about his destiny to always finish runner-up in 2009.
“It looks like second place is my destiny. We had a good rally, with a really good fight but this is how it is. Jari-Matti definitely deserves this result so that’s fine,” added the Finnish driver.
Third place initially went to reigning world champion Sebastien Loeb, who came home more than one and a half minute behind winner Latvala. However, due to unfastening his safety belt during Saturday’s competition, Loeb was handed a 2 minutes penalty at the end of the rally by the Italian organizers, demoting him to 4th place, behind Petter Solberg. So not only Loeb failed to win the rally (for the first time this season), but he also finished the Italian event outside the overall podium.
Despite scoring an impressive 3rd place overall – second podium of the season – Solberg again complained of overheating problems with his private Citroen Xsara.
“My car was overheating again towards the end and in these temperatures this is the best I could do. Overall it’s been an excellent rally. The team have been great and we’ve shown consistency,” said Solberg.
Citroen Junior’s Evgeny Novikov, Stobart’s Matthew Wilson, Adapta World Rally’s Mads Ostberg and Stobart’s Henning Solberg completed the Top 8, in the aforementioned order.
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