Last week Finland’s Jari-Matti Latvala became, at 22 years old, the youngest person in the sports history to win a round of the World Rally Championship, a feat made all the more remarkable by the fact that this was only his second start as a works Ford driver.
Latvala began driving when he was eight years old, after receiving a Ford Escort from his father Jari Latvala, also a rally driver.At the age of ten, Latvala started practicing with an Opel Ascona on a frozen lake.Latvala’s first world rally was the 2002 Rally Great Britain at the age of 17. He finished in 17th position with a Mitsubish Lancer Evolution VI. In 2003, Latvala competed in four WRC events with a Ford Focus. In 2004, Latvala mostly competed with an S1600 class Junior World Rally Championship car with a Group N Subaru Impreza WRX STI. In the 2005 season, Latvala competed in nine world rallies; six with the Group N Impreza and three with a World Rally Car.
In 2006, Latvala competed in 11 world rallies. He drove the Subaru Impreza WRX STI in six, a Ford Focus WRC in four and a Toyota Corolla WRC at his home event. With the Focus WRC, he recorded his career-best result by finishing fourth at the last event of the season, the Rally Great Britain and he was placed 13th overall in the drivers’ championship.
Last year Latvala competed a full 16-event programme for Stobart M-Sport Ford, where he took his first stage win and podium finish.
For 2008 Latvala joined Ford’s factory team as a number two driver, and scored his historic win at the Swedish Rally.
Reigning World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb boosted his hopes of retaining his title by winning the Rally of Catalunya in Spain over the weekend. Citroen driver Loeb finished ahead of his team-mate Daniel Sordo, with main title rival Ford’s Marcus Gronholm in third place.
Loeb led from the first day in his Citroen C4 to pick up his sixth win of the season and 34th, a record, in all. Loeb is now just six points behind Gronholm in the race for the WRC drivers’ championship.
I was big fan of Colin’s dad, Jim McRae, in his day as one of the UK’s top rally drivers and spent many a foggy, rainy night stood on some remote forest special stage watching him and my other rally heroes flash by.
I saw Colin in some of his first national events, but never saw him at the height of his success, other than on TV. He went on to become Britain’s first Rally Champion in 1995 and one of the sport’s greatest ambassadors.
He embraced new technology and new markets. He gave his name to one of the best racing video games that introduced millions of kids, who had never looked at the sport before, to rallying and motor sports in general. He embraced and encouraged Rallying as the latest edition to the X-Games.
Above all he was passionate about the sport of racing in all its forms having also raced at Le Mans in sports cars and tested Formula One Grand Prix cars.
Several of the tributes I’ve read describe McCRae as “fearless”, yes he was, but he was also one of the rare few natural talents who could take a car and dance with it in that supreme ballet that signifies the perfect combination of man and machine.
Ford’s Marcus Gronholm snatched an amazing victory in the Rally New Zealand after three days of constant lead changes between himself and championship rival Sebastian Loeb.
At the start of the event it looked like Gronholm would dominate the event, but Loeb reeled him in during the second day grabbing the lead by day’s end. During the last day of stages the two would constantly swap the lead with the gap never being larger than 2.9 seconds. Gronholm’s eventual 0.3 second margin of victory is the closest in modern rallying, and gives him a 10 point lead over Loeb in the championship battle.
Current World Rally Champion Sebastian Loeb closed the gap on 2007 championship points leader Marcus Gronholm with a dominant victory on the Rally Germany over the weekend.
This ws the Citreon driver’s sixth consecutive win at the event and he never looked challenged. Gronholm on the other hand has under constant pressure from a hard charging Francois Duval. Gronholm eventually sucummed and took his Ford off the road early on the third leg. He then struggled to bring his danaged car home fourth behind teammate Mikko Hirvonen.
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