Hirvonen flourishes with victory at WRC Rally Sweden

The Finn won the first round of the 2010 WRC event by 42.3sec after three days' competition in the ice-bound Scandinavian forests. The win also moved Ford level at the top of the all-time standings with 74 WRC victories.

Team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala finished third with a time of 1min 15.4sec behind Hirvonen and Citroen's Sebastian Loeb. The double podium gives Ford a 10-point lead at the top of the manufacturers' standings after the first of 13 rounds this season.

Hirvonen's tyre management again played a crucial part in his victory. After making minor set-up changes to his Focus RS WRC, the Finn ended the first leg with a 6.2sec lead where he then stretched that to 16.6sec yesterday (Second leg), aided by his decision to fit new rubber to the front of his car enabled him to blitz closest rival Loeb by 16sec in two stages. He measured his pace through today's final leg to secure his 12th WRC win.

Hirvonen who won his very first opening round WRC event elaborated, "It was a big win for us and I want many more this season. It's the first time I've won the opening round of the year. I tried to be more aggressive from the start in all aspects of my performance. It was a brave decision yesterday to change the tyres when I did but it paid off and those kind of decisions make the difference between winning and losing."

"It was such a hard rally for the tyres on the exposed gravel and you can't imagine how nervous I was driving the final stage. I have a year's more experience of a title battle than this time last year and I think that showed here. I need to continue in the same way for the rest of the season," he added.

Citroen's 6-time WRC champion Sebastian Loeb did not have the Swedish wind or weather to his favor as he ended up playing runner-up to Hirvonen. His team mate Dani Sordo took fourth overall.

Starting the third day of the rally 16.6s behind Mikko Hirvonen, Loeb knew that he had to do something really special to wrench the win from the Finn, but in the end Loeb only managed to match Hirvonen's pace which wasn't enough to grab the outright victory.

In the Värmullsasen special stage, Hirvonen came out on top with Loeb finishing 7.3s behind and his gap to the leader exceeding 20 seconds. Then, the Frenchman had to yield to a ferocious Hirvonen after coming close to a potential accident when his C4 kissed a wall of snow in an all out assault on Hirvonen. After that, he drove to secure the much needed second rather than a "DNF".

After the 30-minute stop in the service park the crews competed in the last three stages of the rally. As the gaps between the front-runners were quite large, all the drivers gave themselves a wide safety margin and there were no changes in the order until the finish at Karlstad.

Sordo put his previous day’s disappointment behind him and concentrated on keeping fourth place

Stobart crews scooped healthy points haul and a stunning stage win on the first round WRC event. Henning Solberg and Matthew Wilson (above) finished the round in sixth and seventh overall, securing a triple points finish for Stobart. 2-time WRC Marcus Grönholm scored manufacturer points, a stage win and a string of top five stage times for the team despite technical problems and a puncture forcing him out of contention for a top ten spot.

Grönholm started the final day in fine fashion by going third-quickest through SS17 Rämmen, while Solberg and Wilson continued to cruise towards good points finishes. Grönholm then went second-fastest on 10.49km SS19 Lesjofors as he revelled in the thick snow-covered surface of the test. Meanwhile, Solberg and Wilson enjoyed clean runs through the final loop to finish inside the top ten, chalk up their first points of 2010 and take a solid result from an extremely tough rally.

up, the WRC crews will move to the sunny and hot Rally of Mexico from 5 - 7 March for Round two of the World Rally Championship.

* Article taken from www.motorsportchannel.com