WRC: 2014 Rallye de France-Alsace

This was a landmark victory for Volkswagen’s Jari-Matti Latvala, being his historic first win on tarmac. He became the first rally driver from Finland in the last 15 years to have won on asphalt after veteran Tommi Makinen’s victory in the 1999 Sanremo Rally in Italy.

Thrilled with his victory, Latvala said, “It feels amazing. If we go back to 2008 in Catalunya driving the Ford Focus rally car and losing six minutes to Sébastien Loeb who won the rally... Six years, a minute per year! It’s been long but we did it. It’s been my dream to win.”

Earlier in August, Latvala came close to breaking his asphalt jinx in Germany but crashed rally Volkswagen Polo out of the lead on the final day. But he made no mistakes in France to lead for all but one of the 18 special stages in a Volkswagen Polo R to win by 44.8sec. “For a couple of times it’s been close but I had to do a mistake in Germany to understand and be able to control myself in the leading position. It was a raw mistake but it gave me that control feeling that I have today. The experience helped.” Latvala noted, who was greeted at the end of the final stage by fellow Finn and 1981 world champion Ari Vatanen.

Volkswagen team-mate Andreas Mikkelsen matched Latvala during the first day and led briefly, but settled for second for the third time this year. Kris Meeke was 20.5sec behind in third, taking his fourth podium of the season in a Citroen DS3. 

Former Formula One driver, Robert Kubica looked strong to achieve his career-best fourth after demoting Dani Sordo on the final morning, but as luck would have it, spun his Ford Fiesta RS into a ditch in the final section. Sordo reclaimed the place driving his Hyundai i20 12.0sec ahead of Mikko Hirvonen.

In sixth position was Elfyn Evans, who had a stiff duel with Mads Østberg who finished 1.7 seconds behind. Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville and Bryan Bouffier finished eighth and ninth respectively, with Martin Prokop completing the leaderboard.

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Though things were not going right for championship leader Sébastien Ogier, the Volkswagen driver managed to clinch maximum bonus points by winning the live TV Power Stage. Ogier struggled with a faulty gearbox sensor and a timing error, ruling him out of contention on the first day. 

With just two events left and Ogier leading the championship by just 27 points, the fight for the driver’s title is still alive. He will be champion if he scores one point more than Latvala in the penultimate round in Spain later this month. The mixed surface Rally RACC Rally de España is based in Salou to be held on 23-26 October this year.