Hirvonen has been involved in rallying since 1998, but first demonstrated his abilities in 2002 behind the wheel of a mono-drive racing car, taking first place in the Finnish Formula 2. The same year in Italy, Mikko competed for the Subaru Cup and even took the lead in the series, but unfortunately lost the title in the last stage of the race.

After an unremarkable debut in Monte Carlo, Hirvonen spent the rest of the season flat, without much achievement. This precipitated his move to the Subaru team, with which he spent 2004, a year as quiet as the previous one. In 2005, the driver had to return to racing as a privateer, and by moving into his familiar 2003 Ford, Mikko was finally able to make a good impression, topping the standings at the Acropolis Rally. That performance put him back in the Ford factory team, and a third-place finish at the Spanish Rally guaranteed him a co-driver spot for 2006.

Facts

Hirvonen gave a lot of support to Markus Grönholm and together they were able to achieve a Ford victory in the constructors’ cup. At the same time Mikko got his first WRC win in Australia. In 2007 he had even better results, coming first in Norway, Japan and Great Britain, finishing in the top three ten times all season, as well as giving BP Ford its second team title.

At the end of the year, he finished third in the individual ranking, and in 2008, he replaced Markus Grönholm as the team’s main driver. Mikko Hirvonen is the first driver to achieve this status at such an early age. But he has rightfully taken the spot and had his most successful season to date.
Together with Jari-Matti Latvala, the team’s co-driver, Hirvonen scored three wins and was up against Sébastien Loeb himself until the penultimate stage of the competition.

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As the day went on, the Finn nearly crashed his car twice, but climbed from fourth place to second, stopping 8.3 seconds behind Tänak. Sunday’s four specials would decide everything.

Ott was the fastest on the first of them, the second finished in a tie, and Calle took the lead on the third. Now, before the decisive stage – where, in addition, bonus points were awarded – the rivals were separated by exactly ten seconds.

Rovanpera stayed second and Lappi finished third, even though he flipped during the penultimate stage: the Toyota driver fell into a ditch in a fast turn, made three flips, smashed his windows and radiator.

Despite this, the car was able to keep going and lost only 18 seconds. True, the crew had to stop at a nearby pond and add water to the cooling system, but such an outcome of the accident should still be considered great luck.

Elfyn Evans was the best of those, who doesn’t represent Scandinavia or Baltics. He confirmed the Toyota’s speed with a fourth result, although he lost time on Saturday due to a suspension failure.

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Rallying on asphalt tracks has a peculiarity: cars often pull rocks and rubble from the curb when cutting corners, thus creating an increasingly slippery surface for other competitors. So it’s no surprise that the drivers had a tough time at the first-ever FIA World Rally Championship in Croatia, too. Gravel was scattered in almost every corner.

ŠKODA pilots won the WRC3 category

For several specials, ŠKODA Motorsport’s private teams retained the top three places in the WRC3 class. However, on Sunday morning, the winners of the 2019 FIA European Rally Championship, Chris Ingram (Great Britain) and Ross Whittock (Great Britain) of the SXM Competition team, driving the ŠKODA FABIARally2 evo, pulled off the route, losing several minutes. But Polish and Finnish crews managed to keep their positions. Kajetan Kajetanovic and Maciej Szczepaniak of the LOTOS rally team on ŠKODA FABIA Rally2 evo led in the WRC3 classification. Finland’s Emal Lindholm and Mikael Korhonen, driving the same model for the Toksport WR team, finished second, just over a minute short of the top three. Ingram and Whittock from Great Britain finished fifth.

Croatian Rally results (WRC2 standings)

• Østberg/Eriksen (Østberg/Eriksen Norway/Norway), Citroen C3 Rally2, 3:01:23.7 h
• Suninen/Markkula (Suninen/Markkula Finland/Finland), Ford FiestaRally2 Mk2, +28.5s
• Bulacia/Der Ohannesian (Bulacia/Der Ohannesian Bolivia/Argentina), ŠKODA FABIA Rally2 evo, +2:02.7 min
• Brazzoli/Barone (Brazzoli/Barone Italy/Italy), ŠKODA FABIA Rally2 evo, +29:10.3 min
• Mikkelsen/Fløene (Mikkelsen/Fløene Norway/Norway), ŠKODA FABIA Rally2 evo, +39:42.2 min

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– Semi-automatic transmission

The long-forgotten Group C rally went beyond cyberpunk modifications. Perhaps the most significant innovation in this class was the double-clutch gearbox developed for the Porsche 962 in 1984. It allowed gear shifting without disengaging the clutch and was the forerunner of the semi-automatic paddle shifter boxes still used in Formula One today.
Subshifters never became the industry standard, as many predicted in the early ‘noughties, but remain a popular option on many cars, from various Porsche models to the Honda Jazz and Citroen. F1.

– Disc brakes

This technology is still being refined today. Under the influence of Formula 1, conventional cars increasingly do not use steel brake discs, but their lighter and more heat-resistant ceramic counterparts. Of course, Formula 1 cars are still far ahead of production cars in terms of technology – most of them are already made of carbon fiber.

– Active suspension

Conventional suspension can be described as passive: It moves as the road dictates. Active suspension, on the other hand, does not rely on unreliable surfaces, raising and lowering the chassis for each wheel and thus providing improved handling, better traction and a smoother ride.
Early versions of active suspension simply adjusted the stiffness of the shock absorbers, but Formula 1 has taken this technology to new heights and now data about the road surface is uploaded to the onboard computer using special sensors installed in different parts of the car.

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Some facts

In fact, after the New Zealand absolute triumph of Rowanperry in the final two stages of the WRC-2022 (in Catalonia and Japan), only two questions remained open in the major league – will Toyota retain its leadership in the team standings and who exactly will become the second or third winners of the championship in the absolute standings? The Spanish round put an end to the team confrontation – the Toyotas won the second victory in a row and finally buried all the hopes of rivals from Hyundai Motorsport to somehow “reach” the fight to the final in Japan… It should be noted that in this rapid October counteroffensive of Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT, a decisive role was played by Sébastien Ogier, who decided to take part in the final three stages – the multiple world champion finally replaced Esapekka Lappi, won the second position in New Zealand and the victory in Catalonia, thanks to which for two stages brought to the team’s treasury 51 points! In fact, the Frenchman saved the Japanese-Finnish team, which in August-September began to rapidly “collapse” due to the failures of Kalle Rovanperi (Belgium, Greece) and Elfin Evans (during the performances in Greece, New Zealand, Catalonia, the Welshman managed to score only 8 points). What did this spectacular Toyota counteroffensive on the New Zealand and Catalan tracks performed by Rowanperry and Ogier look like in numbers?

Sébastien Augier played a crucial role

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Such successes have come relatively recently. Until 1996, all the attention of the manufacturer was focused on off-road rally-raids, where the car ZX Rally Raid was performing, and Citroen had no serious success in rallying at the highest level. However, by the mid-90s it seriously returned to classic rallying. In the early years, the team worked on the ZX hatchback, on which the master of asphalt racing, Jesus Puras, became champion of Spain. In 1998, however, it was decided to work on the Xsara. This work began in 1999, and its result was the Xsara WRC.

His full-fledged world rally debut was in 2001 at the Rally Catalunya. The start was impressive: Jesus Puras and Philippe Bugalski went first and second before dropping out for technical reasons. Bugalski was sixth in the gravel stage in Greece, but the Xsara showed its true strength on asphalt – Puras led in Sanremo and won in France. Meanwhile, young Frenchman Sébastien Loeb became champion in the Super 1600 classification at the wheel of a Citroen Saxo. He later joined the main team and finished second in Sanremo.

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