Petter Solberg has won his second WRC event, beating Peugeot’s Harri Rovanpera by over a minute. There was never really any suspense on the final day, with Petter driving comfortably, and Rovanpera given team orders to bring his 206 home in one piece to score points in the maker’s championship. Seb Loeb took third, only 2 seconds behind Rovanpera, followed by the other Citroens of Colin McRae and Carlos Sainz. Sainz missed a golden opportunity to take the lead the driver’s championship with Richard Burns retiring on day 2, but it wasn’t to be — Sainz trails Burns by a single point. Ford’s youngest gun, Mikko Hirvonen took sixth. Also, I made a mistake yesterday saying Hyundai’s Armin Schwarz was out….he wasn’t, and he took seventh.

This changes the landscape of the driver’s championship a bit. After Burns and Sainz, Gronholm is third, and Solberg is now only a point behind in fourth. Markko Martin and Seb Loeb are just behind Solberg. The next string of rallies will be quite interesting and very competitive. With the tarmac events coming up, expect Loeb and Gilles Panizzi to move the front, but both Gronholm and Solberg have proven in the past they can be competitive on the sealed surface events as well.

Posted on 22 June 2003