Loeb wins Rally Finland!

Sebastien Loeb has won Neste Oil Rally Finland for a third time following a standout performance to beat his Citroen team-mate and local hero Mikko Hirvonen following the second run over the ultra-fast and legendary Ouninpohja stage.

The French ace, an eight-time winner of the FIA World Rally Championship, led from Thursday’s opening stage and drove virtually without fault to land his sixth win of the campaign in the Citroen DS3 WRC he shares with co-driver Daniel Elena.

Team-mates Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen finished second with Jari-Matti Latvala and Miikka Anttila the top Ford crew in third.

Hirvonen tops Power Stage as Loeb wins rally

Mikko Hirvonen has won Neste Oil Rally Finland’s Power Stage to secure three FIA World Rally Championship bonus points in his Citroen DS3 WRC.

Petter Solberg, in a Ford Fiesta RS WRC, was second fastest, 0.6s behind Hirvonen to clinch two additional points with Sebastien Loeb claiming the final point and the overall rally victory with the third best run in his Citroen. Loeb’s winning margin was a mere 6.1s.

Hirvonen’s stage time of 15m17.3s eclipsed Solberg’s previous record of 15m18.4s, which the Norwegian established back in 2005. However, Solberg felt he could have gone faster had it not been for a handful of mistakes.

“It was cleaning a little behind and I made a small mistake at the start, one in the middle and braked far too early for one corner close to the finish,” said Solberg. “I tried but it was not enough.”

Latvala said he struggled under braking nearing the stage finish in his Fiesta after he started the stage with one new tyre. He was fourth quickest ahead of Mads Ostberg and Ott Tanak.

Andreas Mikkelsen picked up a puncture near the start of the stage in his Volkswagen Motorsport-run Skoda Fabia and stopped to change the damaged tyre two kilometres from the finish.

P-G Andersson clinched victory in the Super 2000 World Rally Championship as Finnish wildcard Esapekka Lappi again impressed by setting the fastest time in the category, his sixth SWRC stage best of day three.

Crews will now head to Jyvaskyla for final service, the finish and podium ceremony.