Petter Solberg completed his hat trick of Rally GB wins today by taking the lead from Sebastien Loeb on the penultimate stage. While Loeb held the rally lead from stage two, Solberg applied steady pressure and Loeb finally cracked. While the win does little for Solberg’s title defense (he only gained two points on Loeb), it is a rally win, and it does keep the pressure up on Loeb for the remaining four events. Markko Martin finished a distance, distance third (nearly three minutes behind Loeb and Solberg), and while he’s currently third in the points race, he’s admitted that the Focus just can’t keep pace.

The remainder of the points looked like this:

4. Carlos Sainz
5. Francois Duval
6. Harri Rovanpera
7. Mikko Hiroven
8. Manfred Stohl

A few observations:

* Loeb and Solberg have each won four rallies this season. Had Solberg not run into a streak of bad luck midseason, the championship race would be dead even. And Subaru has to be pleased with the pace of the Impreza, which hasn’t been considered one of the fastest cars in the championship.
* While Martin has been incredibly consistent this season, he’s only got a single win (Finland), and while he’s made it to the podium a lot, he’s really been off the pace.
* Marcus Gronholm may want to consider calling it quits right now. He was on pace during Leg 1, but, haunted by gearbox problems, he had an off on Leg 2 and didn’t continue. He’s clearly not pleased with the development of the 307, but there’s little he can do about it.
* There looks to be quite a shakeup in the factory rostes next season, with both Martin and Francois Duval potentially on the open market. Subaru has reiterated that they are happy with their lineup of Solberg and Mikko Hirvonen, but with Citroen’s Carlos Sainz considering retirement, and Peugeot looking for a steady drive to replace Harri Rovanpera, anything can happen (though I’d have a hard time seeing Gronholm signing off on Martin as a teammate).

Posted on 19 September 2004