Q&A with Mikko Hirvonen

Mikko Hirvonen made it three wins in a row on Rally Australia following an error-free performance in his Ford Fiesta RS WRC.

He spoke to Wrc.com shortly after claiming his second victory of 2011.

Congratulations on victory number two of 2011. How are you feeling right now?

“I’m feeling more relieved than anything on behalf of the whole team. It’s been quite a difficult season even though we’ve had good pace but we haven’t been able to win rallies. This weekend was just fantastic for the whole team. I don’t think of myself as the rally winner but as a team we just got exactly what we wanted so it was a perfect weekend from that respect.”

You say you don’t think of yourself as the rally winner but you avoided the mistakes some of your rivals made. That must give you a lot of satisfaction?

“In a way we did perform fantastically because it was such a controlled drive. Suddenly on Friday we noticed that both of my rivals are out of the rally. I was leading, Jari-Matti was second and Petter was 44 seconds behind. We knew what we needed to do and we didn’t need to panic, just control the situation. That’s what we did the whole weekend. It couldn’t have gone any better.”

Does it bother you that you effectively won the rally because your team-mate slowed down?

“That’s why I said I don’t feel like I won the rally, I just got 25 points. We worked really as a team and just pulled it off. We agreed at the start of the season that we were going to be equal with Jari-Matti but unfortunately now he doesn’t have any chance [of winning the title]. If it were the other way around I would have done the same thing. In that respect it’s fair play and we understand the situation with each other. It’s no problem.”

Given the frustrations you’ve experienced this season how important was this victory?

“It was important. The season is coming to an end and nothing is sorted for next year. Hopefully it helps me and the team especially to carry on for next year. For sure we need it, we just need a whole boost for the team. We’ve been trying so hard and have been so close so many times but haven’t been able to pull it off. Finally we are first and second - it’s really important.”

What about the championship now - 15 points behind Sebastien Loeb with three rounds left?

“Well I’m closer and that’s a good wake-up for the whole championship. There’s two Tarmac rallies coming and we really need to be able to do some tricks to be able to fight against them but we’re ready for that. We have an important test coming so hopefully we are upping our pace on Tarmac and we can really challenge them.”

During your winless streak did you always believe you’d win a rally again?

“For sure I knew we’d win. We were so close in Argentina and Sardinia and many rallies and I was really frustrated that I hadn’t been able to pull it off. I knew it would happen, okay it didn’t happen in a straight fight, but we’re here and that’s the main thing.”

You got 25 points for winning the rally but were you supposed to get an extra point on the Power Stage?

“To be honest we didn’t really think about it. We were a little bit late with that. We were too concentrated on getting everything else sorted. I’m not annoyed with that. Hopefully I can make sure it’s not about that one point at the end of the year.”