interesting eventful rally of finland

[geekdiggy]

-only two non-finnish drivers have ever won rally of finland (sainz twice and auriol once)

- markko martin becomes third non finnish driver to win rally finland

- beef park celebrates his 50th WRC rally, Richard Burns celebrates his 100th

- gronholm & makinen have 8 rally finland wins between them: makinen winning 5 times and gronholm 3

- gronholm, rovenperra, hirvonen, vallimaki and gardemiester (all competitive finnish drivers) retire from rally finland

- vallimaki and duval retire from hitting the exact same rock, sainz suffers damage to his car on the rock as well

- the highest finish for a finnish driver in this year's rally finland was 6th by tommi makinen

- the last time there were no finnish drivers on the podium in rally finland: 1959

- three non-works finnish drivers finish in the top 10, two of them in the points

- ari vatanen, the 1981 world champ who hasn't competed in a wrc event in 5 years, cruises to an 11th place finish

interesting battles:

gronholm vs martin for 1st place in days one and two, trading the position twice until gronholm retired from ripping a wheel off

solberg vs burns vs sainz for 2nd place at the start of day two, all three seperated by .5 seconds

solberg vs burns for 2nd place: burns up on solberg by 1.8 seconds going into the final stage, solberg with a 1.8 second advantage until the second to the last split bringing them dead even, solberg beating burns by 1.2 seconds on the stage and taking second place overall

- martin wins his second event of his season/career

- michellin wins it's 200th rally



the most interesting rally EVER