Hirvonen clinches Jordan victory

The Finn was the fifth and final leader of the dramatic event, and his first win of the season moves him back into the championship lead.

Hirvonen had pulled away from Sordo during the first two stages of the final afternoon, and went into the 41-kilometre final stage with a comfortable 23.7-second advantage.

With Sordo running first on the loose gravel and having lost time to Hirvonen for most of the day, it was always unlikely that he would be able to overturn the Finn's advantage in the Jordan River stage, but any remaining hope for Citroen disappeared when Sordo made a time-consuming mistake after five kilometres. He was able to rejoin having lost almost a minute, allowing Hirvonen to win by 1:15.7s.

"We hung on in the end," Hirvonen said. "It was so nerve-wracking in the last stage. We didn't have any split times, so I didn't have a clue how fast Dani was going. I just tried to drive cleanly and not make any mistakes.

"It's very, very important for the championship. I lost important points in Argentina and now I've managed to make it up."

Sordo had led for much of the weekend, pulling away from the field on Friday morning before being briefly passed by teammate Sebastien Loeb on day two. The world champion had surged forward from an early fifth place once he found a set-up that suited him, and established a 34-second lead before crashing out in a freak road section collision with Conrad Rautenbach on Saturday morning.

That allowed Sordo back in front, but - lacking grip while running first on the road - he was soon passed by Ford pair Jari-Matti Latvala and Hirvonen. They then controversially slowed in the final Saturday stage to allow Sordo back in front and force the Spaniard to run first on the road again today.

The tactic looked wise when Sordo struggled on the loose gravel in the opening Sunday stage and immediately dropped back behind the Fords. But broken suspension then delayed Latvala by ten minutes, and Sordo was able to keep new leader Hirvonen under pressure despite his disadvantageous road position. Only when Sordo was delayed in the final stage could Hirvonen relax.

Chris Atkinson had a consistent run to third for Subaru. The Australian was frustrated not to be closer to the lead pace, but still secured his third consecutive podium.

"It's good points and good for the team," Atkinson said. "It keeps us close to the front guys in the championship, but we've still got a lot of work to do and we want to be winning."

Atkinson's teammate Petter Solberg briefly shared the lead with Sordo on Friday morning, but retired soon afterwards with broken suspension.

After dropping out of the top ten with brake problems on the opening morning, Stobart Ford's Henning Solberg recovered strongly to take fourth place - benefiting from other drivers' problems but also improving his own pace.

His teammate Matthew Wilson clung on to fifth place despite a puncture this morning and pressure from Munchi's Ford driver Federico Villagra, who closed to within three seconds of the British driver after SS20 before Wilson edged away and secured the place, helped by Villagra taking a trip off the road in Jordan River.

Latvala ultimately took seventh after a late battle with Stobart's Gigi Galli, who had rejoined under superally rules having retired with damaged suspension on Friday. He passed the recovering Latvala for seventh when the Finn had a spin in the penultimate stage, but Latvala reclaimed the position in SS22.

Both benefited from Latvala's teammate Khalid Al-Qassimi's final stage problems. Al-Qassimi had been on course for seventh place and his first WRC points before suffering two punctures. He ultimately came home ninth, with Loeb using superally to finish 10th.

Barry Clark drove sensibly following his eleventh hour call-up to the Munchi's Ford team, completing every stage and reaching the finish in 13th overall.

Leading finishers:

Pos  Driver      Car      Time
 1.  Hirvonen    Ford     4h02:47.9
 2.  Sordo       Citroen  +  1:15.7
 3.  Atkinson    Subaru   +  4:59.5
 4.  H Solberg   Ford     +  7:35.8
 5.  Wilson      Ford     + 10:41.7
 6.  Villagra    Ford     + 11:22.2
 7.  Latvala     Ford     + 12:15.6
 8.  Galli       Ford     + 12:24.4
 9.  Al-Qassimi  Ford     + 19:05.7
10.  Loeb        Citroen  + 23:38.1