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Hirvonen starts the season with a second place

27 January 2008

Mikko Hirvonen started the World Rally Championship season by finishing second in Monte Carlo. The winner was the Citroen team’s Sebastian Loeb. Ford’s Finnish lead driver intends to challenge Loeb in the Swedish Rally at the beginning of February. - I hope that the road will be so thickly frozen and snow-covered in Sweden that I can perform well there. It’s one of the rallies that I should be in a position to win, and of course that’s what we are after there, Hirvonen says.
For the first stages in the Monte Carlo Rally, Hirvonen fought against Daniel Sordo, another Citroen driver, for the second place after the leader Loeb. A broken turbo forced Sordo to retire on day three and also changed Hirvonen’s tactics.
- The most difficult part of the rally began after that. Chris Atkinson, who was in third place at that point, was so far behind and Loeb so far ahead that the only sensible alternative was to drop some speed and secure second place, Hirvonen says.
- Anyway, finishing second in the season’s first rally in Monte Carlo is a good result.

Finishing without mistakes

Twenty-seven-year-old Hirvonen drove the rest of the rally without taking any risks or making mistakes, but not without concern.
- Especially in the special stages of the last day, I was much more nervous than last year in a similar situation. Now that I’m the team’s lead driver and tried to secure both manufacturer and driver points, I had some extra pressure on my performance, Hirvonen recalls.
The next rally after Monte Carlo will be the Swedish Rally, and then on to Mexico. With a good performance, Hirvonen has every chance of winning both rallies. The minimum goal is to finish on the podium.

- The danger in Sweden is that if the roads are not properly frozen, loose gravel might tear studs from the tires. The rally would then be a bit of a game of chance. Anyway, I’ll have a good chance there to close in on Loeb for the World Championship title, Hirvonen says.