The WRC title hopes of Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen are all but over after a pronounced tree branch in a bank by the roadside at Rally GB penetrated the Finn’s radiator.
Though, after a brief delay, Hirvonen was able to complete the seventh stage, he lost the narrow lead he’d opened up on title rival Sébastien Loeb and finished the stage well down on the Citroën driver.
“There was a big slide and the rear touched the bank,” Hirvonen explained to wrc.com. “I spun and it pulled the front of the car into a bank where there was a tree stump. The wood came through the radiator. There was no real damage, but we lost all the water in the engine. We carried on for five to six kilometres, but that was it.”
With Hirvonen needing to beat Loeb by at least nine points in the rally – he has 214 points to Loeb’s 222 – his hopes of wresting the title away from the Frenchman, who’s won the last seven consecutive World Rally Championships, is now extremely slim, if not completely over, even if the Ford team can get his Fiesta fully fixed and back on the road after it limped back to service.
'Unfortunately we have to look to the future' – Mikko Hirvonen
“It’s over for sure,” Hirvonen conceded. “I have to thank the team for a really good effort and all the help. Unfortunately we have to look to the future…”
It’s a bitter pill for Hirvonen, who came into the final rally of the season in Wales having completed all other 12 WRC events this year, finishing only as low as fourth in any of them. Though he finished down in sixth place last year, two years ago he lost the title at Rally GB to Loeb by just a single point.
Loeb now realistically just has to keep his Citroën DS3 pointing in the right direction to claim his eighth consecutive title, a record not only in rallying but four-wheeled motorsports in general, the other notable seven-time champion being F1’s Michael Schumacher.
BMW Motorsport
MINIs suffer in Wales
It’s also been a miserable return so far in the first home rally for a works MINI team in decades. Dani Sordo crashed out on stage five when he overshot a hairpin and put his car in a ditch, the team unable to assess immediately if it could be repaired quickly enough for the Spaniard to continue the rally on Saturday under SuperRally Rules.
Then, on SS7, Sordo’s team-mate Kris Meeke, who was well into the points-paying positions, suffered a faulty alternator which threatens to end his charge already, the Northern Irishman and his co-driver Paul Nagle struggling even to get their car back to service.
Want more?
- WRC Rally of Great Britain preview in quotes
- Official World Rally Championship website wrc.com
- Report in quotes from the last round in Spain
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