Has Latvala turned his career around?

Jari-Matti Latvala smiles as he reaches the bottom of the stairs. "It was Luis," he laughs. "He burned the toast." On the morning that would potentially define the rest of his career, the Rally Finland leader's journey from bedroom to breakfast had been interrupted by a fire alarm.

All of Jyvaskyla was interrupted by the arrival of a fire engine after two-time world champion co-driver and Volkswagen team member Luis Moya relied too heavily on the pop-up feature of the Sokos Paviljonki toaster.

But nothing, not this, not the loss of brakes on his Volkswagen Polo R WRC and not a lead subsequently slashed from half a minute to three seconds could stop Latvala.

Walking from the hotel to parc ferme with him on the final morning, his mood was amazing. He'd stayed up past midnight watching onboards of the two stages coming on the final day and yet here he was, fresh, ready to be fast. And anything but fragile.

With a slap on the back I offered him the best for the day ahead, turned and walked away.

"Hey, David," he called after me. "Two years ago, what happened here, it would have finished me."

Not this time though. This time it made him stronger.

In 2013 Ogier defeated the Finns at home © LAT

Last year he couldn't really get close to Sebastien Ogier in his own backyard. This time he showed his team-mate a clean pair of heels. Let's not forget, Ogier is not used to losing and he's certainly not used to losing like this. In comparative terms Latvala destroyed him. First on the stages, then in the head. The like of last week has not been seen before between the pair.

On Saturday night, Ogier was magnanimous, talking of how sorry he felt for the unlucky Latvala. He'd hit the same hole on Jukojarvi; this could have been him. Reading between the lines, it looked like Ogier was softening Latvala up for the mental blow coming his way on Sunday. Even in Finland, Ogier would have fancied overturning a 3.4-second deficit to take back-to-back wins on the season's fastest rally of them all.

But Latvala found another level last week. When the crunch had come the previous afternoon and the front-right caliper on his Polo had broken, Latvala made two telephone calls. He called his engineer and he called Christoph Treier.

In all honesty, one was far more important than the other. With the greatest of respect, he didn't need to talk to his engineer. Latvala is an accomplished mechanic who could probably fix an entire front corner with a Swiss Army knife and a ball of string.

No, the important call was the one to Treier, his psychological coach. They talked through what had happened and how he was going to deal with it.

Brake line blocked off. Brain back in gear, Latvala was quite brilliant as he contained the damage. Driving a rally car on the limit in Finland is tough enough, but doing it with the mass-instability that comes with braking on only three of the four wheels is way worse.

When he arrived back in service, Latvala talked of moment after moment as he wrestled the speed out of the Polo. Coming down the hill on Himos - a stage run on a ski slope - had been particularly entertaining.

Latvala had worked out to improve his mental approach © XPB

"I was glad for the ruts there," he says. "We could use them to slow us down..."

Volkswagen's technical boss Francois-Xavier Demaison was impressed. F-X has seen most things in the WRC, but this was special.

"Then again," Demaison reasons, "it would be quite good in left-handers..."

He was careful to keep that perspective between us for the time being.

The atmosphere when Latvala arrived back in Jyvaskyla at the end of Saturday was extraordinary. The locals chanted, cheered and wouldn't have been surprised had their man vaulted the fence and walked across the lake. Nothing was beyond their man now.

Latvala had real force last week. If there is such a thing as the zone, Latvala and his co-driver Miikka Anttila found themselves right in the middle of it on Saturday night. Given that energy being generated by the pair, the electricity charging through rally town came as no surprise.

By Sunday afternoon, another atmospheric level was reached. If the Finns had been one of those wind turbines (slightly weird analogy I know, but stick with it...) they would have been locked down for fear of overloading the Finnish equivalent of the national grid.

Latvala won this rally twice, in the head and the heart.

The Finland win followed a crisis of confidence in Poland © LAT

Treier talks in detail about the importance of body language and how Latvala had taken the look of a broken man on previous events - last month in Poland was a prime example. He was fixed in Finland on Sunday. The chest was out, the arms unfolded, the walk tall.

Coming back into service for the final time, Latvala slowed the Polo 50 metres or so short of the waiting media masses. Feeding in some boost he launched it towards us in an unusually extravagant gesture.

Job done, Latvala was looking forward to telling the tale. Predictably, there wouldn't be any glib one-liners or soundbites. Such manufactured nonsense is beyond him. When he talks, he talks from the heart.

And more than just Sunday, the whole of last week came from his heart.

Ahead of the start, much had been made of the recent French domination of Rally Finland. Spending the preceding Saturday racing around the streets of Helsinki with Marcus Gronholm, Markku Alen, Tommi Makinen and Juha Kankkunen had brought the situation into sharp focus.

I remember talking to Alen shortly after Sebastien Loeb's first Finland win. He was shocked at the capitulation from Mikko Hirvonen. Losing that rally was simply unacceptable.

"Lose the rally," says Alen, "close the phone, go to sauna and sit for one week. Think about what you have done."

Finns got used to home success with the likes of seven-time Finland winner Marcus Gronholm © LAT

Latvala came to Jyvaskyla last week with a great responsibility. A Finn had to win. The recollection of a late-summer victory over the rest of the world was what helped get the locals through the long, dark winter nights. Rallying really does mean that much to Finns. And a little bit more to Latvala.

And so, the interviews began, with deep analysis attached to every answer. Entertaining, illuminating, self-effacing and imaginative as ever, he even managed to bring in some European history. He talked of the part Finland's legendary inner steel - sisu - played in the Winter War, the 1939-40 conflict when Latvala's hideously outnumbered forefathers hoofed the advancing Ruskies back across the border.

With such talk comes gravitas and, while Latvala would never genuinely compare his job with lying, deep-frozen in a trench hugging a machine gun, he knew what the win meant.

"For the Finnish people as much as for me," he says, "this is everything. This rally is so important to us, I wanted to do this for Finland."

National pride restored. Like the Russians more than 70 years ago, the French revolution had been repelled.

Rally Finland was an absolute gem of an event. One of the best rallies I have ever reported on. Beyond the mass emotion, it had absolutely everything. Toyota Motor Corporation president and CEO Akio Toyoda and Tommi Makinen brought the intrigue. Moya, standing outside the hotel on Sunday morning, fag in hand eyeing the inbound fire engine with an attitude of being as much to blame as anybody brought the humour.

If that wasn't enough, there was a Father Ted scene in the making when Craig Breen described the "lovely pair of legs" on the moose that had come close to having the Irishman's World Rally Car "parked up its arse". Bishop Brennan didn't come close.

Little wonder Volkswagen team principal Jost Capito ended the press conference by saying: "What we have seen here is the best rallying has to offer."

Too right. This column had been inked into the schedule as an analysis of the current malaise and political mess world rallying finds itself mired in.

But then the Finns found us a better story. And the promoter needn't worry: this one sells itself.