Co-driver: Miikka Anttila
The rally didn´t start very well when my co-driver´s in-helmet headset broke down on the first stage. Luckily Miikka thought of using the scrutineering headphones. He kept the helmet on and connected the scrutineering headphones to his helmet and shouted me the notes through the headphone turning the notebook pages with only one hand. A difficult task but Miikka got through it very well. Fortunately the incident didn´t affect our speed. We had built up a lead by the time we returned to the first service but the difference in time to the second place with Jarmo Mikkonen was very small. After service came stage four. That stage was 25 kilometres and it was a crucial one because we were able to pull a ten second gap over Jarmo Mikkonen. Mikkonen was the fastest on stage five and after that it was already time for a break. The contest was extremely keen at the beginning of the next stage but then it was suddenly over. Mikkonen drove off the road for over a minute. After this I only focused on driving to the finish without mistakes. This I managed to do and I celebrated the first victory in Finnish Championship.
1st overall, 1st in group A
Toyota Corolla WRC
Service team Latvala Motorsport Oy.
Rally engineer Asko Kosonen