Hirvonen leads home Ford 1-2-3

Hirvonen led the event from the first stage of the rally, and he then held off the charge of Gronholm and Sebastien Loeb to take the second victory of his career.

Hirvonen's maiden victory came in Australia last year, when Loeb was absent with a broken arm and Gronholm crashed on the first day, but this time he had to battle against the former champions.

"It's been a fantastic rally," he said. "I rate this higher than Australia, because we were leading from stage one and we were really fighting with Marcus and Sebastien."

Gronholm moves into the lead of the world championship with his second place, as Sebastien Loeb's errors on Saturday cost him any chance of points.

"It's a good result because Sebastien will be strong in the championship," said Gronholm. "But Mikko will also be strong. It would be nice to win, but what can we do?"

Loeb kept running on Sunday in an attempt to pick up a point for Citroen in the manufacturers' championship, even if he could not add to his own tally for the year with 14th place.

"We have tried some things for testing to improve the handling of the car," said the world champion. "I think we have a very good car but when it is very slippery I am not so happy so we have to work on that."

Henning Solberg stalled at the beginning of the final stage of the rally, but he held off his younger brother Petter in a tight battle for fourth place.

At the end of the event, both drivers got out of their cars to celebrate their results in their home event.

"I'm very happy with my result," said Petter. "I did everything I could and maybe if it was a longer stage we could have done it.

"It's been really good fun, it's been an exciting weekend and we have tried everything we can."

Jari-Matti Latvala held on for fifth place, while Manfred Stohl was one of two drivers to drop out of the points with problems on the final stage.

The Austrian dropped out of sixth place, while Xevi Pons also stopped in the stage and lost eighth position.

Gigi Galli took sixth place in his Citroen Xsara, while Daniel Carlsson and Jan Kopecky both moved into the points due to the problems for those ahead of them.

Rune Dalsjo moved into ninth place, while Andreas Mikkelsen completed the top 10 after getting special dispensation from the FIA to compete as he is too young to drive on the roads in Norway.

Pos  Driver      Make         Time
 1.  Hirvonen    Ford         3:28:17.0
 2.  Gronholm    Ford         +     9.5
 3.  Solberg     Ford         +  3:44.6
 4.  Solberg     Subaru       +  4:01.1
 5.  Latvala     Ford         +  5:30.7
 6.  Galli       Citroen      +  7:05.2
 7.  Carlsson    Citroen      +  9:23.7
 8.  Kopecky     Skoda        + 11:49.9
 9.  Dalsjo      Subaru       + 13:31.8
10.  Mikkelsen   Ford         + 14:28.7