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Uddeholm Swedish Rally review

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Uddeholm Swedish Rally review

The snow might have been patchy, but the quality of the driving at the Swedish rally wasn't. King of the slush was Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala, who became the youngest driver to ever win a world championship rally at just 22. With team-mate Mikko Hirvonen less than a minute behind in second, the ghost of Marcus Gronholm is being exorcised fast in that team.

Helping Ford's cause was an uncharacteristic crash from Sebastian Loeb in his Citroen C4 WRC on Friday. The team patched the car up, but the engine damage was too great and the Frenchman's 100th rally ended prematurely on Saturday. Teammate Sordo was hampered by a five-minute penalty for having to replace his engine before the rally started, so sixth for the Spaniard was pretty damn good considering.

So bad for Citroen, but Ford's good news kept on coming. Italian Gigi Galli gave his legion of fans something to celebrate for days by equalling his best ever finish for a podium third in the Stobart sponsored Focus. Henning Solberg might have challenged but for a wall-smash early on, later redeemed by a series of storming comeback drives on Sunday. But oh, the pain for the Brit fans. Matthew Wilson in the same Stobart Ford was running a magnificent fifth until his throttle stuck on the penultimate stage. Our agony was great when he retired, so you can imagine what he was feeling.

Worse for the 21-year-old was news that his record of youngest ever WRC points scorer had been eclipsed by an 18-year-old whizzkid Norwegian named Andreas Mikkelsen. Driving a Focus WRC prepared by a small North Wales based rally company, Mikkelsen wowed the crowds with a fifth-placed finish. Even with Marcus Gronholm as a mentor, it was an astounding result. Petter Solberg kept Suburu in the hunt with a fine fourth, but newcomers Suzuki were celebrating harder courtesy of Toni Gardemeister's fine seventh place, taking them into points twice in two events.

The P-WRC round kicked off in Sweden, immediately propelling Finnish Mitsubishi driver Juho Hänninen into first place after he finished a terrific eighth overall, beating some of the WRC big boys in the process. Last year's champion Toshi Arai could only manage sixth in his new-shape Subaru Impreza. His traditional nemesis, Nasser Al-Attiyah, also in a new Impreza, also struggled until a spin left him beached on a snow bank. However he reported the new Impreza hatchback – still yet to be revealed by Subaru's main WRC team – was better in the bends than the old saloon.