Latvala wants points after poor start

An accident in the second stage of Rally Ireland cost the Finn any chance of taking points from the opening round of this year's series. He had been leading by 17 seconds at the time, and was already over 40 seconds clear of eventual winner Sebastien Loeb before making the error.

Having won last year's Swedish Rally, Latvala is among the favourites for victory in Norway, which has replaced Sweden on the WRC calendar for 2009.

But while he says he has learned from the season opener a fortnight ago and will not repeat the mistake, Latvala insists his priority for Norway is to score points and get his championship challenge underway.

"It would be great to win here. But because I have had the bad start, I can be happy with the top three," Latvala said.

"When I started the season, I thought I was ready to fight for the title. I learned a lot [on Rally Ireland]. It was a really good wake-up call for me. I'm ready to fight for the victories now. We have the passion for the win, but if things don't look so good, we can look for points."

Latvala accepts that missing out on points in Ireland does offer him a better position on the road on the opening day of Rally Norway, but in the absence of any heavy overnight snowfall, the Ford driver says it won't offer a very big advantage.

"Rally Ireland was definitely a big disappointment. But at least, I think, the positive from that is the good start position we have here," said Latvala.

"Tomorrow, on Friday, the surface is a bit softer. There's some soft snow on the top, and that will be cleaned a little bit by the cars ahead. But the advantage won't be the same as the one I had on the first day of the Swedish Rally [last year]."

Latvala ended today's shakedown stage fourth fastest, seven tenths of a second down on Loeb's benchmark.