Loeb breaks record with narrow win

There was little to choose between the two title rivals throughout the weekend, but Gronholm's two errors on Saturday morning ultimately proved crucial.

The Ford driver lost just over 30 seconds and the rally lead with the two excursions on consecutive stages, and ended up losing the event to Loeb by a mere 5.6 seconds.

Prior to those mistakes, Gronholm seemed to be in control of proceedings. His advantage over Loeb averaged around 10 seconds during leg one, with the points leader sometimes moving a few seconds closer only for Gronholm to respond and rebuild the cushion each time.

Then Gronholm's leg two spins put him 25 seconds behind Loeb - where he would remain until mounting an incredible charge on the final morning.

Although he kept insisting that Loeb was out of reach, that didn't stop Gronholm carving 10 seconds from the Frenchman's lead during the morning loop, and then closing to within 5.4 seconds as they headed for the decisive Obihiro superspecial.

With just 1.29kms remaining, that margin always looked a little too large for Gronholm to overcome, and so it proved, with Loeb actually beating his rival by 0.2 seconds on the superspecial to clinch his 27th win - a new record.

"Today he was really pushing hard and in my situation it was hard to know what I had to do - to take further risks or keep the car on the road," Loeb reflected. "To finish with just five seconds' lead... incredible.

"The record is important but it's not my first motivation. The most important thing is the championship.

"But when you are in a battle like we were with Marcus, you really want to push to the end. It was really close, really difficult mentally, but we got it."

Mikko Hirvonen's rally was as dull as his team leader Gronholm's was eventful. He ran third from the opening morning onwards - never close enough to challenge Gronholm and Loeb, but never under any threat from behind. The Finn was left to admire the scenery for 27 stages as he drove conservatively to collect useful points and another podium.

Home team Subaru's fluctuating fortunes provided the interest behind the top three. Petter Solberg had been desperate for a podium on this event, but fell back with brake problems early on. These would plague him for the entire weekend, and he spent most of the rally fighting for the final points positions.

A brief respite from the brake woes on Saturday afternoon allowed Solberg to set a series of top three stage times and progress as far as sixth. But then he lost his rear brakes completely early in leg three and dropped several minutes, ending up a distant eighth.

Chris Atkinson therefore became Subaru's best hope for success. An early penalty for leaving service late after difficulty fitting a suspension part cost the Australian several positions, but he fought back strongly to claim fourth from Manfred Stohl late on leg two. He would hold the place to the end of the event.

Stohl survived a gearbox scare this morning to take fifth on his and the OMV team's Japanese debut.

Fellow event rookie Dani Sordo was having a cautious run to sixth in the second Kronos Citroen, only to lose a minute avoiding Luis Perez Companc's crashed car in the penultimate stage. This dropped him behind local hero Toshi Arai, who managed to stay ahead through Obihiro and claim a top six finish on his first World Rally car drive in four seasons.

The remaining WR cars all fell by the wayside - two of them on the final morning. Gareth MacHale and Perez Companc both crashed when holding ninth with only a few stages to go, the latter's shunt being his second of the day.

Matthew Wilson had already dropped out of contention thanks to turbo problems and a ditch visit early in leg two. He rejoined under SupeRally rules on Sunday to gain more experience of the Japanese stages.

All of this was but a sideshow as the extraordinarily tense lead battle developed on the final morning. The shortage of competitive works cars has made the 2006 WRC a little tedious at times, but today's showdown was a much more satisfactory way for Loeb to make history and edge closer to a third consecutive championship title.

Results

Pos  Driver     Make              Time
 1.  Loeb       Citroen     3h 22:20.4
 2.  Gronholm   Ford             + 5.6
 3.  Hirvonen   Ford          + 2:46.5
 4.  Atkinson   Subaru        + 6:07.8
 5.  Stohl      Peugeot       + 7:10.7
 6.  Arai       Subaru        + 9:05.1
 7.  Sordo      Citroen       + 9:06.3
 8.  P Solberg  Subaru       + 11:47.7
 9.  Nutahara   Mitsubishi   + 22:57.4
10.  Pozzo      Mitsubishi   + 23:24.8