STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- Ford's Marcus Gronholm
celebrated his 38th birthday by winning his fourth Swedish rally
on Sunday, edging out world champion Sebastien Loeb by 30.9
seconds.
"This is a nice birthday present, it could not be better,"
Gronholm said. "It's been a really good start to the WRC for
us.
"When I came to the end of the stage this morning
I was very worried but the team did a fantastic job with the
car."
The Finn, who also won the season-opener in Monte Carlo
ahead of the Frenchman, finished the 19 stages in three hours
nine minutes 1.9 seconds.
Homecrowd favorite Daniel Carlsson (Mitsubishi) finished
third, trailing Gronholm by two minutes 56.8 seconds. His
Italian teammate Gianluigi Galli was fourth.
Gronholm, two-time world champion, joined Ford at the beginning
of this year after six years with Peugeot. He led throughout the
race although he had overcome a tough challenge from Loeb on the
final day.
Having dominated Saturday with five stage wins Gronholm let
Loeb, racing a Citroen for the privately-entered Kronos team,
back into the race on Sunday.
Loeb won Vargasen 2 and Hagfors Sprint 2, the two final
stages on Saturday, and Lesjofors 1, Rammen 1 and Malta 1 on
Sunday to narrow Gronholm's lead to 14.4 seconds.
Gronholm struggled with gearbox problems and lost nine
seconds to the Frenchman on the Malta 1 course.
However, he had his mechanical problems fixed and won the
the Lesjofors 2 stage 3.7 seconds ahead of Loeb, then beat the
Frenchman into second place again on the penultimate Rammen 2
course by 3.2 seconds.
Gronholm wrapped up victory by winning the Malta 2 stage.
"I would have liked to win but we could not compete with
Marcus," said Loeb, who made history in 2004 when he became the
first non-Nordic Swedish rally winner in fifty years.
"We tried all combinations of tyres and studs but we could
not match the performance of Marcus."
The Swedish rally is the only true winter event in the world
rallying championships.