WRC: Mikko Hirvonen finally wins his home rally in Finland

From the World Rally Championship

Mikko Hirvonen's resurgent form in the 2009 World Rally Championship continued today when the Ford Focus RS driver scored a dominant maiden victory on his home round of the series, Neste Oil Rally Finland.

The result was Hirvonen's third consecutive victory this season, the tenth of his career, and moved him further ahead at the top of the FIA drivers' championship standings, three points clear of defending champion Sebastien Loeb, who finished second today.

Victory on Rally Finland, the fastest round of the World Rally Championship, is seen by most drivers as the ultimate prize in the championship calendar - but it was especially sweet for Hirvonen, 29, who lives in host city Jyvaskyla and was tackling the event for the eighth time.

On last year's event he finished second, trailing his Citroen rival Loeb by nine seconds. However this year Hirvonen led from the second stage in his BP Ford Abu Dhabi team car, beating his rival fair and square by 25.1 seconds.

Hirvonen climbed onto the roof of his car at the finish control and punched the air in celebration, "I've been watching this rally since I was a kid, and now I've won it myself it's an absolutely fantastic feeling!" he said.

Five time champion Sebastien Loeb was Hirvonen's biggest threat throughout the rally but said his challenge effectively ended after he dropped a wheel into a pot-hole on SS15, pushing the tyre off the rim and losing 13sec.

After moving ahead of Dani Sordo on Saturday, Hirvonen's team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala took a well deserved third place, 24.8sec behind Loeb, and was relieved to make the podium after his last stage disaster on the previous round in Poland.

Sordo finished fourth, 16.2sec behind Latvala, after one of the best drives of his career. Once known more for his ability on sealed surfaces than gravel, Sordo marked himself out as a true all-rounder after an amazing performance on all three days.

Sordo never put a foot wrong and played the perfect team role on the final day when he was asked to safeguard Citroen's manufacturers' series points position rather than going after Latvala.

Like last year Finland's Matti Rantanen proved one of the sensations of the event. Last year he finished seventh on his first event in a World Rally Car.

This year, on only his second world rally car outing, he finished fifth after fending off a last day attack from Citroen Junior Team driver Sebastien Ogier, driving this event for the first time in a world rally car.

Rantanen started the day 17.5sec ahead, but lost all but 0.6sec of that advantage to Ogier before the final stage. In the end, however he clung on to the place by 0.3sec.

Sixth placed Ogier was one of the first to congratulate Rantanen. The Frenchman later said a small mistake had cost him the place.