Hirvonen wins, Loeb is champion

The Finn clinched the event in perfect style by winning the final stage of the rally, as he ended the event with a winning margin of 37 seconds.

"Everything has gone so well," said Hirvonen. "We've only had a few small problems all weekend, so we've been able to control the rally. It's fantastic."

The Ford driver was able to manage his pace from Friday afternoon, as he was able to monitor Solberg's split times and make sure he was doing enough to hold on to the lead.

But Solberg was delighted with only his third podium finish of the year.

"This is a very good result," he said. "I'm pleased with what we have done this weekend. I'm happy for the whole team."

Manfred Stohl took a comfortable third place after stretching away from Xevi Pons on Sunday morning. That was despite the Austrian complaining of a lack of confidence for much of the event.

Marcus Gronholm recovered back to fifth place after his roll on Friday morning, but that was not enough to prevent Loeb from being crowned champion while he is still recovering from his broken arm.

"This was the best we could hope for after our crash on Friday," said Gronholm. "There was no chance to climb higher unless the other drivers had problems."

Behind Gronholm, sixth place overall went to PWRC winner Jari-Matti Latvala. The battle for the PWRC win had taken place in the overall top eight since day one, where several of the main WRC runners hit trouble.

Pos  Driver     Make        Time
 1.  Hirvonen    Ford       3:15:11.8
 2.  Solberg     Subaru     +    37.1
 3.  Stohl       Peugeot    +  3:58.6
 4.  Pons        Citroen    +  4:45.4
 5.  Gronholm    Ford       + 12:23.8
 6.  Latvala     Subaru     + 17:09.2
 7.  Baldacci    Mitsubishi + 17:42.9
 8.  Herridge    Subaru     + 18:22.0
 9.  Beltran     Mitsubishi + 26:23.5
10.  Atkinson    Subaru     + 27:05.5