Stage 2 – Loeb goes off and leaves Hirvonen in the lead

The twists and turns keep coming for this 14th round of the season in Japan. Yesterday, Marcus Gronholm made a mistake forcing him to retire, and today it’s Sébastien Loeb’s turn to go off the road… Hirvonen takes advantage and heads towards victory.

Mikko Hirvonen currently dominates the Japan rally after the second stage. He leads Dani Sordo by nearly 40 seconds, which is quite a gap.

Gronholm and Loeb both retired, leaving their teammates as the only ones among the leaders capable of fighting for the victory.

On the podium, Henning Solberg inherits third place thanks to another withdrawal… this time by Jari-Matti Latvala due to another off-road incident.

The Finnish driver had actually started his rally well and gave up his place to his teammate Stobart.

Behind, the positions become very interesting for drivers used to fighting for 8th place. It’s Perez-Companc who takes a beautiful 4th place in a Ford Munchi’s, while Stohl, victim of a gearbox problem on his 2006 Xsara, is forced to drop to 6th position, leaving Wilson in 5th place.

The other Ford Munchi’s, with Villagra, is in 7th place but already more than 7 minutes behind. The gap has almost doubled for Taguchi, a local of the rally in a Mitsubishi Lancer, who completes the top 8 with more than 13 minutes behind Hirvonen.

Xevi Pons, in the third Subaru, also went off the track. There were therefore no more Imprezas in this home rally before Peter Solberg took the wheel again, but only for the Production category. His good times, even ahead of Hirvonen, are therefore not taken into account.

Sébastien Loeb dropped out due to a mistake by his co-driver. Daniel Elena rarely makes errors during his note-taking, but the Monegasque made one today that cost the Frenchman very significant points.

Therefore, in the championship, nothing changes among the title contenders. Gronholm had a 4-point lead over Loeb before Japan and he will still have a 4-point lead afterward.

With two rallies remaining in the season, everything is still possible, but Gronholm is taking a serious step towards the title.

On its side, Ford needed to score 5 more points than Citroën to secure the constructors’ title, but in the current situation, a gap of only two points would be insufficient.

There are still 7 special stages tomorrow for a new twist.

Stage 1 – Rally Japan – Special 20/27