Marcus Gronholm: Rally of my life

Rally New Zealand, August 30-September 2 2007
Ford Focus RS WRC07

I really wasn't sure which rally to choose for this. Do I do the first win - Sweden in 2000? This was the special one; everybody remembers the first win or the last one.

Ach! The last one, it was the really special one. So close, so close - by three tenths of a second. The rally of my life has to be New Zealand in 2007.

We made a good start, we won the first two stages and everything was good. We had something like a 14-second lead by first service, but, you know Seb [Loeb] is there. He was always there!

On the last stage on Saturday night [Te Akau North] Loeb passed me and I was not leading for the first time.

Of course, I was not happy and wanted to push like hell to change this. We had some short stages on the final day and then two long runs at the stage everybody takes the pictures on [Whaanga Coast], the one by the sea. This stage was nice.

Gronholm described the win as incredible © LAT

There was really nothing between us all of the time. The weather was difficult as well: raining sometimes then not, then more. It was not easy.

Going to the last long stage, he had a two-tenths lead over me. We pushed like crazy through that stage, always on the limit and over. We came to the end and the time was 0.9 seconds faster than him.

'Yes!' I shouted, 'we have won!' I thought we had beaten him by 0.7s. I thought we had finished. Then Timo [Rautiainen], my co-driver, said, 'OK, now we go to the superspecial'.

I couldn't believe it. 'Shit!' I shouted, 'I completely forgot about the superspecial!'

So then we had to go to the stage near service [Mystery Creek] with a 0.7s lead. I made a mistake in one corner and I was sure I had lost it, but it was OK.

Actually, it was Henning [Solberg] who helped me a little bit. There was a watersplash in the stage and he told me to keep to the right side, where the water was not so deep. I did this and won.

It was an incredible win for me. I will never forget standing on top of the car in Hamilton.

Marcus Gronholm was talking to David Evans

IN PROFILE

Having won two world rally championship titles and his home rally in Finland a record seven times, Marcus Gronholm retired from the WRC at the end of 2007.

In a career spanning 152 world rallies in 21 years, he won 30 times - 18 for Peugeot and 12 for Ford.

After twice popping out of retirement for one-off WRC reappearances, Gronholm turned his attentions to rallycross, where he won in America and in British and European outings.

WRC STATS

Starts: 150
Wins: 30
Points: 615
Titles: 2 (2000 and '02)