We all felt a little bit Norwegian there didn’t we? When local boy Petter Solberg won the first stage in one of Loeb’s cast-off Citroens, I admit to an, uh, upwelling of emotion.
Not as much as the local commentators during Thursday’s night-time special stage. They went totally bananas, but then the story does have it all.
Once-great rally driver, denied podiums over the last few years because his once-great rally team (Subaru) wasn’t competitive enough, loses his job in the credit crunch, refuses to give up, buys an old Citroen Xsara last properly developed eight years ago, enters his local rally privately, wins first stage, beating the dominant rally driver who discarded his car three years ago. Who wouldn’t get emotional at that?
The in-car footage was priceless. Hearing those hysterical commentators yelling in the stadium outside while co-driver Phil Mills talks Petter round the snowy pursuit course in that calm Welsh accent of his was just fantastic “Open long… double tightens… big jump.”
Okay so the rally was always going to be all about Ford and the latest Citroens, but Petter finished a creditable sixth place overall, roundabout where he was finishing the Subaru last year. Which, as it happens, he beat here in Norway. A Norwegian outfit had bought and entered the 2008 Imprezas with two local youngsters at the wheel. One finished in the top 10, but three places below Petter.
With that underdog story melting ice-hard rally hearts everywhere, the well-funded factory teams had to work hard to wrest our attention back to the top.
To their credit they did. The battle between Mikko Hirvonen in his Ford Focus and Citroen’s Sebastien Loeb lasted through every snowy forested stage. After leading day one, the Finn and his Ford was never more than 13 seconds behind the Frenchman. But Mikko was never ahead again either, and Loeb scored his 49th win with just 10 seconds to spare. He did actually look knackered at the end though, which was good to see.
A month’s break now before heading to Cyprus mid-March. Some gravel, some tarmac and lot of head-scratching from the teams about how to set the cars up properly. Should be good...
