Rally Sweden / Rally review
Final stages
On the last day the competitors had
to tackle another 8 stages. Latvala
was flying and won the first 5 of these.
Number 6 was for Østberg, number 7
for Ogier and the last one (the power
stage) was for Østberg again.
Thierry Neuville scored a runner up
position on one of the stages but had
a puncture on one of the others. Mikkelsen’s hopes for his first VW win
evaporated when he got stuck in the
snow. This cost him some 25 seconds
and the chance to catch Latvala.
Spring is near
The stages were particularly tricky
as the approaching spring caused
the snow that covered them to rapidly disappear. Prokop and Kubica
found out the hard way and went off
into a snowbank and a ditch respectively. But for the rest the top contenders kept their pace. Latvala and
Mikkelsen brought VW another one,
two finish. Østberg was glad to be on
the podium for Citroen, and Hirvonen
was reasonably happy to finish in
fourth.
Surprise
Once again Sweden proved to be a
rally for the Nordics. A nice surprise
was the classification of Ott Tanak.
He celebrated his come back by finishing fifth.
15/42
After settling in Ostberg found his speed to
win stage six. There was no stopping Latvala though who went on to win.