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91-477: The C4 WRC and Loeb maintained a 100% record on asphalt events during its WRC career, winning all 13 pure asphalt rounds of the World Rally Championship. The car made its debut at the 2007 Monte Carlo Rally in the hands of Citroën World Rally Team drivers Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Sordo . Loeb won the rally after leading throughout, with Sordo finishing as runner-up, with the pair winning

182-545: A 20-point lead over him in the drivers' standings. At the Rally d'Italia Sardegna , Hirvonen and Loeb both dropped time on day one in a bid to gain a better road position. After Loeb incurred a puncture, Hirvonen found himself unable to catch teammate Latvala, who had been pushing in front from start to finish. In the following Acropolis Rally in Greece, Hirvonen took his first win of the season. With Loeb crashing out, he reduced

273-515: A car had finished in first and second-place in its début rally was 20 years ago in the 1987 Monte Carlo Rally , when Miki Biasion and Juha Kankkunen came first and second in all-new Lancia Delta HF 4WDs . The Delta HF 4×4 also won two-thirds of all the stages of that 1987 rally, just like the C4 did this time around. Lancia also won both the Group A and Group N categories in the race, while Citroën won

364-650: A chaotic route in the 2006 Monte Carlo Rally , Automobile Club de Monaco (ACM), the rally organisers, chose to move 2007's race away from Monte Carlo and the roads around Alpes-Maritimes and other departments within the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Instead, the rally HQ was set up in Valence, Drôme , almost 400 km (250 mi) away from Monte Carlo, with most stages being held in Ardèche . While some stages were brand new to

455-419: A ditch as he entered one of the corners on the stage, and his brother Petter had a similar problem in the same corner, but his quick reactions were able to control the car so he just drove into the scrub and got back on track. Henning finished in seventeenth place, and Petter finished joint-fifth with Cuoq on 12m 50.4s . Loeb ran his slowest time on this stage after he reduced speed and his tyres went cold. "I

546-410: A few seconds and he finished the stage ninth, behind Hirvonen, Jean-Marie Cuoq , Gardemeister and Kopecký, but he retained his fourth place standing in the event's classifications. The surprise result of Stage 10 was Atkinson's. He broke Loeb's and Sordo's run and was the first fastest non-Citroën driver of the rally, and set a time of 12m 42s . Henning Solberg, meanwhile, went off the road and into

637-513: A massive battle, and so much fun to be in a battle with these guys again," he said after being congratulated by Hirvonen. Two drivers in non-manufacturer cars, Gardemeister and Kopecký, finished in seventh and eighth place to receive drivers points. As a consequence of the final positions, Loeb started the season leading in the World Rally Championship for Drivers with ten points. Sordo was second with eight points, Grönholm

728-406: A second made the difference between a fourth-place position and five points, and fifth-placed position and four points. Hirvonen, who was in fourth place, completed the stage in 1m 50.9s , and admitted, "[I made] a few small mistakes, and that can be it. Nothing more I can do. We'll see how Chris drives and hope for the best.". Atkinson drove opposite Grönholm on the stage, with Hirvonen watching from

819-504: A set with a more suitable compound. A new WRC rule for 2007 allowed for Remote Service Zones to be set up away from the main Service Park at Rally HQ. For 15 minutes the cars could be refuelled, re-tyred, and have any necessary maintenance carried out, as long as the parts and tools to do so (except fuel and tyres) were already in the vehicle. For Grönholm this was a major relief. On the previous stage his car had developed an issue with

910-478: A six-second lead." Grönholm was also complaining. " The only good thing here is to win this rally, but to drive here; I don't like it." Stage 6 was a rerun of the Saint-Pierreville  – Antraigues stage from the morning. The roads had dried out by the afternoon, but that did not stop some crews from having accidents along the route. Stohl spun out as he went through a corner, and crashed

1001-482: A solid third as Citroën retained the manufacturers' title. PH-Sport ran a second team of C4 WRCs under the Citroën Junior Team banner for Rautenbach and Ogier, with Evgeny Novikov , Chris Atkinson and Aaron Burkart also appearing under the banner during the year. Petter Solberg ran an old Xsara WRC for his own team for most of the season, before switching to a C4 WRC for the penultimate round, and

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1092-460: A ten-year absence of nighttime-run stages, the first two Special Stages of the event were held on Thursday night. They were the first night stages scheduled in the rally since 1997. Throughout the day it had rained, and although it had stopped before the race began, the roads were still very wet and slippery. In discussing the day's weather, Grönholm said that he expected the stages that night to be difficult, and added, "I hope this time we can take

1183-518: A third place overall in the drivers' world championship. In the 2007 season , Hirvonen started with a fifth place at the 75ème Rallye Automobile de Monte-Carlo and a third place at the 56th Uddeholm Swedish Rally . He took his second WRC victory in Norway and later also won the 2007 Rally Japan and the season-ending 2007 Wales Rally GB . He finished third in the driver's championship, 17 points behind Sébastien Loeb . With Grönholm, Hirvonen secured

1274-407: A time of 30m 03.5s . The Mitsubishi Lancer WRC crew of Xavier Pons and Xavier Amigo had other troubles during this stage. The transmission failed and they had to retire from the rally. Their teammates Toni Gardemeister and Jakke Honkanen set a good time on the stage when they finished in fifth place, as did OMV-Kronos's Manfred Stohl and Ilka Minor in sixth. At the end of Stage 3 ,

1365-464: Is really, really fast and my arm is much better, so everything is perfect for the moment." Guy Fréquelin , the Team Principal at Citroën Total was also pleased with Leob's and Sordo's results. He said afterwards, It's a really a fantastic start for Citroën, for the team, for the crews. It's really fantastic, and for the chief, for sure! This is the result of a huge team effort. To do this in

1456-646: The Rhône-Alpes region. Many of the locations had not been visited since the 1990s, such as the Vercors and Ardèche , and only one top level driver had competitively driven on the roads before. The 2007 event also marked the return of the nighttime stages. Loeb's win was his fourth at Monte Carlo and twenty-ninth in WRC. It was the sixth time that he had achieved a podium position there, which brought his WRC podium finishes to forty-eight. He earned ten points in

1547-533: The Circuit de Monaco for a total distance of 2.8 km (1.7 mi), with two cars on the road at the same time but starting at two different points along the track so that they did not interfere with each other. Because the Service Park was in Valence, repairs, adjustments, refuelling and tyre changes were carried out on Saturday night ahead of the drive down to the coast. The decision about which tyres to fit on

1638-605: The Subaru World Rally Team placing third with eight points. The 2007 Monte Carlo Rally was the first round of the 2007 World Rally Championship (WRC) season after taking a six-week break since the last race of the 2006 season in Great Britain . It was held over four days from Thursday, 18 January to Sunday, 21 January 2007 . With pressure from the president of Fédération Française du Sport Automobile and being beset with criticism for running

1729-480: The World Rally Championship for Drivers . Sordo was two points behind him, while Grönholm was in third position with six points. With Atkinson and Hirvonen in fourth and fifth place, Petter Solberg , Toni Gardemeister and Jan Kopecký were the other points finishers. In the World Rally Championship for Manufacturers , Citroën Total World Rally Team earned the maximum eighteen points for their 1–2 finish, BP Ford World Rally Team placed second, with ten points, with

1820-411: The manufacturers' title in both 2006 and 2007 . In 2008 , 2009 , 2011 and 2012 he finished runner-up to Sébastien Loeb . Hirvonen's co-driver was Jarmo Lehtinen from the 2003 season until his retirement in 2014 , Lehtinen had replaced Miikka Anttila who co-drove with Hirvonen in the 2002 season . Hirvonen won the under 2000 cc Group A Finnish Rally Championship in 2002. As one of

1911-451: The 2006 version, which had performed poorly the previous season, would be no match for the Focus or C4. Added to the fact that the cars were equipped with unfamiliar BF Goodrich tyres after Pirelli decided not to supply any teams in 2007, and they were hoping that Petter Solberg and Chris Atkinson could just earn some points from the race. Forty-nine crews registered to compete in

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2002-449: The 4-wheel drive WRC category and came first in the 2-wheel drive Super 1600 category. "For me this victory was one of the best, because we had a lot of questions before the start. I was a bit stressed on Thursday; it was a lot we didn’t know. The feeling was good, but in the race you need to be able to improvise and be confident in the car and we didn’t know. Also my arm, it was my first race in four months, some new stages, rain and in

2093-540: The C4 at the 2010 Rallye Deutschland . Petter Solberg drove a C4 WRC for his own team and picked up eight podiums over the season, finishing third in the final standings, ahead of works drivers Ogier and Sordo, and behind eventual world champion Loeb. 2007 Monte Carlo Rally The 2007 Monte Carlo Rally (formally known as the 75 Rallye Automobile Monte-Carlo ) was a rallying autosports race held over four days between 18 January and 21 January 2007 , and operated out of Valence, Drôme , France. It

2184-460: The C4 could be widened to 1,800 mm (71 in). It was also higher than the Xsara, and the weight distribution had been fine-tuned, including raising and moving back the front seats (which had the negative effect of reducing the drivers' visibility), and attaching the wing mirrors to the midpoint along the front doors. The C4's test drivers reported that the car handled more stably. Citroën

2275-408: The C4 to be any slower than the Xsara, and that car had a performance edge over us last year." Petter Solberg also had issues with his tyres throughout the rally. After Subaru switched to BF Goodrich es from Pirelli following the 2006 season, and with the shortest break between seasons the WRC had seen, the crews had not had enough time to test the new compounds. The Subarus had had their problems with

2366-489: The Ford crew of Grönholm and Timo Rautiainen , who finished after 14 m 13.9s . On Stage 2 , a 17.88 km (11.11 mi) run from La Cime du Mas to Col de Gaudissart , Loeb held on to the lead, completing it in 9m 31.2s . Grönholm proved to be faster than Sordo on this stage, finishing with a time of 9m 45.5s , 1.1s faster than Sordo. At the end of Leg 1 and 46 km (29 mi), any worries about how well

2457-519: The Frenchman's championship lead to seven points. At the following Rally Poland , Loeb crashed again, although recovered to seventh, with Hirvonen winning his second consecutive rally he moved to the top of the standings. In Finland , Hirvonen took the lead on the first proper stage and continued pulling away from Loeb to take his debut win in his home event. A few weeks later, in Australia, Mikko

2548-537: The Pirellis, too. To protect them from breaking up too quickly the drivers had learned how to look after them, but driving that way on the new brand meant that he could not get the BFs up to temperature and ended up running slower. He finished the rally in sixth place. His teammate Atkinson did not have that problem though, and after fighting with Hirvonen in the final half of the rally, finished in fourth place. "It's been

2639-548: The Super Special Stage. For most drivers it was going to be the last time to gain higher positions in the classifications. Loeb, although slow again, extended his lead in the standings to 31.1 seconds , by finishing in fourth position with a time of 11m 47.7s . Sordo also had another bad stage. He finished the stage ninth-fastest after 11m 55.6s on the road. For Hirvonen, it was the last good chance to retake fourth position from Atkinson, which he did when he won

2730-525: The World Rally Championship's younger competitors he made his debut full-time in a third Ford World Rally Team entry in the 2003 season , scoring one points finish for sixth place at the Cyprus Rally . After Richard Burns was diagnosed with brain tumor in late 2003, Hirvonen moved to take his place as team-mate to 2003 world champion Petter Solberg in 2004 for the Subaru World Rally Team . He scored points in ten rallies, but his best event result

2821-453: The accident, he won the stage, and increased the overall gap between himself and Sordo from 6.5 seconds to nearly 24 seconds . A repeat run of Stages 4 and 5 closed the day. Sordo won Stage 8 and Loeb took Stage 9 . But by the end of the Leg and 550.02 km (341.77 mi) of driving, Loeb's arm and shoulder were in great pain and his osteopath worked through the night to try to address

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2912-531: The attention of Ford, whose factory arm signed him for the 2006 season . Hirvonen drove the new Ford Focus RS WRC 06 partnered with Marcus Grönholm . Hirvonen took his first World Rally Championship win at the Rally Australia , and placed second at the Rally d'Italia Sardegna , the Rally of Turkey and the Rally New Zealand . By finishing on the podium for six rallies in a row, he secured

3003-458: The car into the end of a stone wall. The impact caused damage to the car's roll cage which forced him to retire from the rally and end his attempt to earn any points. The final stage of the rally took place on Sunday morning. After conducting the entire race in France the organisers only paid lip service to the principality by holding a Super Special Stage there. It involved two laps of part of

3094-494: The cars was taken out of the teams' hands. ACM ordered that all the cars would drive on the snow tyres that the teams had been allocated, but had not been used because of the dry weather, a decision that was described as "absurd" because the cars ended up drifting through the corners. Loeb's, Sordo's and Grönholm's lead times so far ahead of anyone else's, so the interest in Stage 15 was on Hirvonen and Atkinson. Only eight-tenths of

3185-469: The championship in recent years, and despite its age it was still incredibly reliable and was only replaced because the Xsara model was no longer in production. The C4's mechanical components, such as the engine, transmission, differentials and suspension were either very similar to, or came from, the Xsara, but the wheelbase and chassis were longer by 253 millimetres (10.0 inches) and 107 mm (4.2 in), respectively, which meant that under WRC rules

3276-532: The crews between Saint-Jean-en-Royans and Col de Lachau . Before taking to the tarmac, Chris Atkinson, in a 2006 Impreza WRC for the Subaru WRT , admitted to never driving a tarmac stage at night before, but said it would be interesting to see how everybody performed. His teammate Petter Solberg spoke of the challenges facing him: "[In the dark] everything gets a little bit more narrow and you always tend to be careful with how you turn in and keep

3367-480: The drivers were able to complete the stage faster than they had been in the morning. At just 5 km (3.1 mi) Loeb was already much faster than his time during Stage 3 , but on a narrow stretch of the route towards the Col de la Fayolle he did not brake into a corner at the right time and skidded and collided with a fence. He was able to carry on driving, but co-driver Elena's door and sill were damaged. Despite

3458-489: The final stage on Sunday morning, and finished the race back in fourth position. Controversially, the 2007 Monte Carlo Rally was no longer based in Monaco and localities nearby, where it had been held in recent years. The event only visited Monte Carlo with its final special stage , a short run on part of the Circuit de Monaco and the rest of the time was spent in and around Valence hundreds of kilometres north of Monaco in

3549-481: The first crew to take to the still-damp roads, and they set a time of 32m 52.9s . Their teammates, Matthew Wilson and Michael Orr , completed the leg a minute quicker, at 31m 42.5s . With no snow and ice on the roads, Sordo, who proved to be very quick on the tarmac surfaces last season, was fastest on Stage 3 . He set a time of 29m 43.4s , a wide margin ahead of Loeb's and Grönholm's second- and third-placed times of 29m 59.6s and 30m 01.1s , respectively. Loeb

3640-634: The first event, every member of the Citroën Sport team had to come together in a common goal. I think it's a wonderful reward for our pus to come back to the World Championship. It's not often that a car making its competition début produces results like these: nine fastest times, eight on them 1–2s. And there aren't many models that have dominated and scored a 1–2 finish in their first race, either. The Citroën C4 WRC has really made its presence felt on its international début. The last time

3731-522: The first nine of 15 stages. Loeb went on to win seven of the remaining 15 rallies that season to beat Ford's Marcus Grönholm to the title by nine points. Sordo finished fourth in the standings. Citroën retained Loeb and Sordo in their team for 2008, with Loeb winning 11 out of 15 rallies to take the title, while Sordo finished third in the standings. This was enough for Citroën to regain the manufacturers' crown. C4 WRCs were also run by privateer squad PH-Sport for Conrad Rautenbach and Urmo Aava during

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3822-443: The first one, I had to pull my finger out!" said Atkinson. He regained his fourth-place position just 7.2 seconds ahead of Hirvonen. Loeb was slow again, 6.7 seconds slower than his teammate, Sordo, which cut the time between them to 23.2 seconds . "No problem, the car is going very well," said Loeb. "One stage more to go and hopefully its okay." Stage 14 was the last in the mountains of Ardeche, before travelling to Monte Carlo for

3913-429: The front of his car into the stone wall of a house. He continued on, but the front bumper was damaged and hanging loose. "We lost the front brakes completely," Stohl explained. "Absolutely no brakes. I was lucky to finish because I was nearly off sometimes." Despite his difficulties, he managed to finish the stage in 29m 37.6s which put him in 10th position for the stage, and 8th overall . The dry roads meant that all

4004-415: The hydraulic flappy-paddle gearchanges on his steering wheel, which meant he had had to resort to shifting gears manually. The technicians were unsure why or how it had occurred and were hoping that their repairs would last until the car got back to Valence. Loeb won an uneventful Stage 4 , but only by one-tenth of a second ahead of Sordo, and on Stage 5 Sordo was quicker than Loeb, after Loeb stalled on

4095-593: The inaugural Jordan Rally . Hirvonen took his second victory of the season in Turkey . Despite being the favourite to win at his home event, the Rally Finland , he could not match the pace of his title rival Loeb and finished a close second. In New Zealand , Hirvonen was leading when he had a puncture and a spin on the penultimate stage, dropping him to third behind the Citroën drivers Loeb and Sordo . The stage

4186-540: The late 1990s. Although the 25,000 spectators seemed pleased that the rally had returned to the region, the drivers, team bosses and Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA; WRC's governing body) were less enthusiastic. Over a total distance of 1,185.22 kilometres (736.46 miles), the fifteen stages totalled 328.54 competitive km (204.15 miles), which was shorter than the FIA's regulatory minimum of 360 km (220 mi) for Special Stages. The drivers hoped that with

4277-402: The main roads back to Valence. Though forty-nine crews registered in the rally, only forty-seven actually competed. Privateers François Duval driving a Škoda Fabia WRC , and Angelo Villa in a Fiat Punto failed to start the event. The first stage of the rally started at 19:16 Central European Time ( UTC+1 ) on Thursday evening. The 28.52 kilometres (17.72 miles) winding route led

4368-406: The manufacturers' title for Ford for the second year in running. On 17 December, Hirvonen was officially named as the number one BP-Ford Abu Dhabi factory driver for the 2008 season , after Marcus Grönholm's retirement. His young compatriot Jari-Matti Latvala was named his teammate in the second factory Focus. Hirvonen started the season with a second place at the 2008 Monte Carlo Rally , which

4459-488: The new C4s would perform had been forgotten. They had beaten all the competition by a wide margin. Loeb was almost 25 seconds ahead of his teammate, while Grönholm was 30 seconds adrift; and Petter Solberg, over a minute behind the lead. There were six stages in Leg 2 on Friday, totalling 150.62 competitive km (93.59 miles). Stage 3 was the first of these, starting at 08:19 CET in Saint-Pierreville . The route

4550-464: The next three stages were reruns of the morning's. Hirvonen won Stage 12 and Atkinson had another slow run, which resulted in Hirvonen taking fourth place in the provisional classification by four-tenths of a second. On Stage 13 , Atkinson retook his fourth-placed position after winning the stage with a time of 12m 32.4w , and beating Hirvonen by 7.6 seconds . "Considering how ordinary I drove in

4641-452: The night – it was a lot of new things. For us it’s good news to see the C4 was competitive and to fight for the victory and to win." Sébastien Loeb , commenting on the weekend in the post-race press conference. Grönholm was disappointed with his race, admitting that he thought he might be able to beat Sordo, if not Loeb. But after having gearbox and tyre problems on Leg 2 , he settled into third place and stayed in that position to

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4732-682: The penultimate stage caused the bonnet hinge to fail, as time ticked by to get rid of the bonnet cover, the Championship was handed to Loeb. In 2010, Hirvonen continued his partnership with Ford for the last time with the Ford Focus RS WRC before switching to the new 1.6 Ecoboost Ford Fiesta RS WRC in 2011. In 2012, Hirvonen changed his seat to a Citroën DS3 WRC to partner Sebastien Loeb in the Citroën Total World Rally Team. His first rally win for Citroën

4823-432: The podium positions were unchanged, but the time difference between Loeb and Sordo had decreased to seven seconds, although the gap between first place and fourth was over a minute. Petter Solberg had dropped out of contention for points, in ninth place overall, eighth being taken by Jan Kopecký in a privately entered Škoda Fabia WRC . Before Stages 4 and 5 got underway, the crews had a chance to change their tyres to

4914-481: The previous season's champion, set off first, followed by Grönholm, then Mikko Hirvonen . Loeb and Grönholm were the favourites to win; Loeb had won the Monte Carlo three times in a row between 2003 and 2005, and Grönholm had won in 2006. Nevertheless, there were worries that Loeb would not be physically fit enough to win. Four months earlier he had broken his left shoulder in a mountain-biking accident, and there

5005-456: The problems. Leg 3 began early Saturday morning. Following Friday's stages, Loeb was 25 seconds ahead of Sordo, and 1m 15s in front of Grönholm. Stage 9 was the first of the day, a 19.67 km (12.22 mi) route between Labatie-d'Andaure and Lalouvesc held in darkness. Loeb, Sordo, and Grönholm once again finished first, second and third. Atkinson suffered a setback when he crashed his car and stalled it. It cost him

5096-408: The race from the outset, winning the two stages on the first day and four more stages over the following three days. His teammate Sordo kept the pressure on, winning three stages, but on Stage 6, Loeb extended his lead from 6.6 seconds to nearly 24 seconds, and from thereon became unattainable. Each stage on the first two Legs were won by either Loeb or Sordo, and it was not until Saturday afternoon on

5187-609: The race. "The car has been good in testing. But what about the rally?" he asked. "I don't know." Marcus Grönholm , the Ford team's number 1 driver, was wary, however. "It's got thousands of k's on the clock. It was running when the Focus WRC 06 was still on the board." Meanwhile, the Subaru World Rally Team were waiting for the Subaru Impreza WRC 2007 to be ready for the 2007 Rally Mexico in March. The team knew that

5278-475: The rally taking place on higher altitudes, wintery conditions and burle (a freezing wind blowing from the north) would produce ice and snow on the ground, making for a more exciting event; however, except for some rain on Thursday evening it never came to fruition and the prevailing weather was clear and dry. Sébastien Loeb was unhappy with the weekend's weather forecast. Following his reconnaissance run, he said, "With snow everywhere and walls on both sides of

5369-414: The rally's conclusion. "We got it wrong on the tyre choice, which we had to have approved by the FIA early in the week," he explained. "We thought it would rain. Harder tyres would have made life easier for us." BP-Ford was also unhappy. Christian Loriaux, the team's Technical Director said, "Having Marcus finish behind Sordo is disappointing. Being behind Loeb is easier to understand, because I didn't expect

5460-455: The rally, Of the top-tier drivers entered, Jean-Marie Cuoq was the only WRC rookie , and Chris Atkinson , Henning Solberg , and Matthew Wilson had driven at Monte Carlo only once before, all in 2006 . The starting order for Leg 1 was "Priority 1" (P1) and P2 WRC drivers in the order of the final classification of the 2006 season , followed by all other drivers as decided by the ACM. Loeb,

5551-453: The rally, some places, such as Saint-Jean-en-Royans , Burzet , Saint-Martial , Lalouvesc , Saint-Bonnet-le-Froid , Saint-Barthélemy-Grozon , and the Saint-Pierreville – Antraigues-sur-Volane route had played host to Monte Carlo Rally stages in the 1990s and earlier. Only Manfred Stohl , driving for OMV-Kronos Citroën World Rally Team , was familiar with these roads, as he had competed on them in

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5642-526: The right tyres, we were always a little bit on the wrong side [last year] – it’s not easy, but I hope we will manage to get it right this time." Earlier in the day, the crews had driven a shakedown stage in Mauves ; however, due to a large number of fans and spectators along the route the shakedown was stopped early, and some crews including Loeb and co-driver Daniel Elena were forced to carry out last-minute testing and necessary changes to their cars on

5733-403: The road first in their C4, and despite the limited visibility from both his ride position and the unlit roads, he set a pace time of 13m 58.7s . His teammate Dani Sordo and co-driver Marc Marti were able to keep up the pace, maxing out at 196 kilometres per hour (122 miles per hour) at one point along the route, and finished in 14m 07.2s for second place. Taking third place on the stage were

5824-486: The road, like in the old days, some of these stages would have been brilliant. But because it's dry, in some places that makes it less interesting because than the roads further south with all their corners." The service park in Valence was also much smaller than what had been used in Monaco, so there were no Production World Rally Championship or Junior Rally Championship categories, and fewer entries of competitors. It

5915-471: The season in 4th place. On 13 December 2013, it was confirmed Hirvonen would re-join M-Sport , formerly Ford for the 2014 season. The season was remarkably good for him, as he grabbed two podium places, and three power stage victories meant he was placed fourth in the championship, behind the dominant Volkswagen trio, Sebastien Ogier , Jari-Matti Latvala and Andreas Mikkelsen . On 6 November 2014, it

6006-435: The season, as well as for Junior World Rally Championship winner Sébastien Ogier at the final event of the season, Rally GB . Ogier lead the event early on despite it being his first in a WRC car. In 2009, Loeb and Sordo once again drove for the factory squad, with Loeb winning the first five events of the year and then winning the final two to beat Ford driver Mikko Hirvonen to the title by just one point. Sordo finished

6097-616: The season-ending Wales Rally GB . He was bumped down to 44th as a result, but managed to recover to eighth place by the end of the rally. This result meant that Hirvonen and co-driver Lehtinen became the first WRC drivers ever to score points on every round of a season. Hirvonen started the 2009 season with a third place behind the Citroën duo at the Rally Ireland . At the Rally Norway , which he won in 2007, he narrowly lost

6188-596: The second run of the day's stages, that other drivers could effectively challenge them. The last two days of the race consisted of a duel between Mikko Hirvonen , who drove a factory 2006 model Ford Focus RS WRC , and Chris Atkinson in a factory Subaru Impreza WRC 2006 . After Hirvonen completed Stage 2 in fourth place, Atkinson took the position on Stage 3 and held onto it throughout Friday and into Saturday morning's stages. On Stage 12 on Saturday afternoon, Hirvonen retook fourth, Atkinson regained it on Stage 13 but then lost it to Hirvonen again following Stage 14. Atkinson won

6279-412: The sidelines. To beat Hirvonen, he had to complete the stage in 1m 50.0s . He was one-tenth of a second quicker than that, which won him the stage and fourth place in the rally. Loeb was delighted with his win at Monte Carlo, saying, "It's a victory in Monte Carlo so that's a great moment. I like to start the season like this, with ten points. That's really important for me, the feeling is good. The car

6370-505: The speed up in the corners, but obviously you have to listen to the pacenotes, that is absolutely crucial thing, 100%." Loeb, who was familiar with driving on nighttime stages in the French Rally Championship , said, "In the dark you have to drive like you can when you have only two passes on the recce, and then you also start with the fastest stage. I think there can be some big moments tonight." Loeb and Elena took to

6461-440: The stage by setting the pace time of 11m 30.5s . Atkinson ran 8 seconds slower and finished second. It was also Jari-Matti Latvala 's last chance to earn a points position. Kopecký had been in eighth position and set to score one point since the middle of the second Leg, but Latvala was just 5.4 seconds behind him going into this stage. But Latvala pushed too hard and when he drove over some loose gravel he lost control and slid

6552-422: The start-line and was unable to make up the lost seconds. At the midday break, Loeb was lamenting his lead over Sordo. "Now it's a big battle between the two C4s. The other cars for the moment are behind, so it's good news for the team. It would be easier if Dani were bit further behind but I have to deal wit that," he said. "I'll try to keep position this afternoon, but it's not easy. Dani is really fast. I only have

6643-563: The win to Loeb after a tight three-day battle. He went to finish second to Loeb also in the following two rallies in Cyprus and Portugal . In Portugal, Hirvonen tied the record for the longest points finish streak in the series (22 events) with his former teammate Marcus Grönholm . In the next round in Argentina , Hirvonen was six seconds behind Loeb after 14 stages when his Focus RS WRC incurred an engine problem. His retirement saw Loeb take

6734-560: Was 46.02 km (28.60 mi) long and finished in Antraigues . The previous leg's provisional classification determined the starting order for Leg 2, whereby the top 15 P1 and P2 drivers started in reverse order, followed by the remaining drivers in order of classification. Henning Solberg and Cato Menkelud , driving a 2006-spec Focus RS WRC for the Stobart VK M-Sport Ford Rally Team were

6825-443: Was a bit faster than Dani [Sordo] on the start of the stage, and then I saw my splits [times between checkpoints] and then I tried to slow down," he explained. "We had hard tyres and when you slow down the tyres [cool down] and then you lose the grip more and more, and at the end it was really tricky and I had cold tyres, so I just tried to slow down. The end [of the stage] was really tricky so I didn't want to take any risks." Stage 11

6916-518: Was a chance he might not even compete in the first part of the season. His physiotherapists and consultants told him that because of the operations he had had on his arm, he should definitely have sat out the Monte Carlo Rally. Loeb admitted that he was "really stressed" before the start, and wondered whether his arm would be okay. "It has been okay in testing but what about the long stages?" he asked. His answer: "I don't know." Following

7007-574: Was a disaster for Ford as Hirvonen's teammate Latvala and Stobart M-Sport Ford driver François Duval both crashed out from second and fifth place, respectively. Hirvonen then dropped eight points behind Loeb in the drivers' championship with only four more rallies to go. Loeb soon secured his number one spot in the drivers' championship in Japan , but the manufacturers' title fight was still open as Ford trailed Citroën by eleven points. That changed when Hirvonen rolled his car onto its roof in stage five of

7098-407: Was again in a tight battle with Loeb, where Loeb eventually won. Unfortunately for Loeb his car was found to have rollbar irregularities, as did Dani Sordo and Sébastien Ogier. They were then given 1 minute time penalties, which handed Hirvonen the win and 10 points. Hirvonen led the 2009 Championship by a point from Sebastien Loeb, and needed a win to clinch the title, but a hard landing from a jump on

7189-508: Was also badly located and poorly run, and WRC's commercial director David Richards said that the service area was "like a car boot sale ". After being absent from the WRC for the 2006 season to spend thirteen months concentrating on preparing their new Citroën C4 WRC vehicle, the Citroën Total World Rally Team returned in 2007 ready to début it in the Monte Carlo Rally. The Citroën Xsara WRC had dominated

7280-659: Was announced that he will retire from the sport, moments before the start of the Wales Rally GB. In 2015, Hirvonen began to compete in rally raid for X-Raid with a Mini Countryman , finishing third at the Baja Aragón with co-driver Michel Périn . In January 2016 he finished fourth at the 2016 Dakar Rally . In the 2016 FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup , the Finn won the Hungarian Baja and finished third at

7371-584: Was confident the C4 would be successful yet concerned as to whether it would beat the Ford Focus WRC 06 , which had won the World Rally Championship for Manufacturers title in 2006 for the BP-Ford World Rally Team . The Focus, in addition had undergone its own developments during the winter break. The tarmac testing of the C4 showed it to be faster than the outgoing Xsara, but Loeb knew that that performance might not show itself in

7462-438: Was first, with eighteen points – ten from Loeb's win and eight from Sordo. 44°56′00″N 4°53′30″E  /  44.9333°N 4.8917°E  / 44.9333; 4.8917 Mikko Hirvonen Mikko Hirvonen (born 31 July 1980) is a Finnish former rally driver, and a current Rally-Raid driver, who drove in the World Rally Championship . He placed third in the drivers' championship and helped Ford to

7553-537: Was his and the BP-Ford Team's target. In Sweden , he was considered as favourite, but had to settle for second being unable to keep up with his younger teammate's pace. After Rally Mexico , where he had punctures and had to change a wheel, and in Rally Argentina , where he retired from the lead and then re-joined under SupeRally rules to take fifth place, Hirvonen took his first win of the season at

7644-441: Was in third position with six points. In the World Rally Championship for Manufacturers , Stobart Ford had one point from Henning Solberg's fourteenth-placed position (although Wilson finished the rally quicker, he was not nominated to earn points for the manufacturer). Stohl earned OMV-Kronos Citroën two points. Subaru were in third place with eight points, BP-Ford were two points clear of Subaru in second place, and Citroën Total WRT

7735-492: Was only fourth, at the Rally Argentina and at the season-ending Rally Australia . These performances were not enough to secure a seat for the 2005 season . Hirvonen then campaigned a two-year-old Ford Focus RS WRC 03 and led one rally during the course of the year, and scored a career-best third-place finish at the Rally Catalunya as a privateer . It was Hirvonen's showings on such events that brought him back to

7826-424: Was said to be "visibly shaken" from losing the stage to his less-experienced teammate. "I lost 16 seconds , my tyres were too hard," he said. "At the start they went cold and I wasn't in a good rhythm. Before we reached some dry parts I wasn't confident and I didn't want to take any big risks this morning." Most drivers had problems with their tyre selection on Stage 3 , including Petter Solberg and Hirvonen. Petter

7917-493: Was still trying to get used to the new BF Goodriches his car was outfitted with, but he found them too hard and said he could not find any feeling or grip with them. Hirvonen, however, felt his tyre compound was too soft, and was unimpressed with his time. Hirvonen completed the stage ninth, in 30m 41.5s , but Petter's time of 30m 50.0s was even worse, putting him in 12th position. Petter's Subaru teammate Atkinson had no problems with his tyres, though, and he finished fourth with

8008-446: Was the first race of the 2007 World Rally Championship (WRC) season . Contested over fifteen stages at a length of 328.54 kilometres (204.15 miles), Sébastien Loeb won the race for the Citroën Total World Rally Team . Dani Sordo finished second in the other Citroën works car, with Marcus Grönholm finishing third in a Ford . Loeb, driving an all new Citroën C4 WRC car which had been in development throughout 2006, took control of

8099-516: Was the fourth rally of the 2012 season in Portugal to provisionally take the lead in the championship, but he was later disqualified from the event due to irregularities with the clutch and turbo in his Citroën DS3 WRC. 2013 was a disappointing year for Hirvonen, finishing on the podium just five times, collecting no wins. He ended the season with one of his biggest accidents ever in Wales. He finished

8190-581: Was then entered under the Junior Team banner for the final round of the season. Loeb and Sordo continued with the factory team into 2010, while the Junior Team ran Ogier and Kimi Räikkönen . Ogier, though, had a strong start to the season (including a win in Portugal ) and so was swapped with Sordo for gravel rounds in the second half of the season. Ogier then won the 2010 Rally Japan as a factory driver. Räikkönen achieved his first career stage win with

8281-450: Was won by Hirvonen with a time of 11m 46.9s . Loeb was 1.2s slower and finished second. Atkinson lost all the time he made up in Stage 10 by finishing in eighth place, 11.4 seconds slower than Hirvonen. This reduced the gap between the two in the overall classifications to just 8.9 seconds . Sordo, meanwhile, had his worst stage and finished in 10th position . After the midday service,

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