It’s back to the hotel after an entertaining podium ceremony at Rally Sweden. Held at the main square of Karlstad, the ceremony attracted a large crowd, and as usual, everyone joined in the fun, from white haired seniors to blonde teenage girls – the few near me nudged each other in excitement when good looking Thierry Neuville drove up the ramp!
If you missed our previous live reports, after 24 stages over four days, Proton’s PG Andersson has won the S-WRC category ahead of Irishman Craig Breen with a 3:35.8 cushion.
Breen, in a Ford Fiesta S2000, was the man who inherited the class win at Monte Carlo, where PG’s Neo caught fire on the final day. Pontus Tidemand and his Skoda Fabia S2000 was a further 1:13.8 behind.
“It’s a fantastic feeling to finally do it with Proton. We had no real problems from start to finish, although we made a few set-up changes to get the best out of the car. Today we just looked after our advantage and concentrated on bringing our car safely to the finish,” he said.
In the WRC, it was a battle between the Finns and ex-Ford teammates Mikko Hirvonen and Jari Matti Latvala all weekend, and it was the current Ford man who came out tops despite a late puncture. It is the 50th WRC win for Ford and M-Sport since they joined forces in 1997.
Also, Finns have been dominating this “Scandinavian Rally” since Marcus Gronholm won in 2006. Hirvonen, who is Seb Loeb’s teammate at Citroen this year, won the past two editions, so he missed out on a rare hattrick.
“I think I need to get to hospital to check my heart rate. It’s incredible how exciting this sport can get. We had a good lead on Saturday night, but then it changed like a thunderstorm and we only had an eight-second lead at the end. I knew Mikko would push and we really had to go hard, but then we managed to take another four seconds on the penultimate stage, so we could breathe a little bit!” Latvala said.
“To win here for the second time felt very special; the feeling now is just a big relief,” he added. From what we saw earlier at SS22 Lesjofors, I fully believe the relief.
The easy going but hard driving Latvala also joked that after Monte Carlo, where he retired, the great Ari Vatanen told him that he is “like a young Ari Vatanen” but now he needed to stay on the road. Looks like the advice was well taken!
Here are my pics of the rally royalty from the podium ceremony; from Loeb to Solberg, they’re all there. Credit for the first pic of this post goes to Mr. G from Proton Motorsports.
congratz.!! well, lets wait what expatriate ‘vietnam’ gonna say. heheh..
not 2 forget ajaw n da gang…
Sad :(
Congratulation!
Yeehaa…..nice job Proton.
step by step.. road to wrc … hope to see it happen
bravo Proton…
congratulation….
This is really ……”Standing in the eyes of the World”. Well done Proton Motorsport
congrats to Mr Andersson and Proton team. Anderson (aka Neo) in The Matrix trilogy, maybe that explains why Andersson is really compatible with the Neo.
i’ve seen enough of Neo 2000 already… no pic of the blonde teenage girls?
congrats…
DRB takeover contributed a lot… hehehe
before takeover confirmed the couldnt finish the rate.. hahaha
Joke a side.. well done proton team… keep up the good job.. target the championship..
BTW another proton car got some point??
Congrats PG Andersson for winning the S-WRC category …….Bravo to Proton Team.
Congrats Proton!!!!
i want one…..
butthurt for basher………no wonder still no comment until now…..wahaha
when google and search for swrc….link to this http://www.wrc.com/swrc/ when seeing this Satria Neo on cover page…feel so proud seeing it..= )
who said satria neo is not a good car…it proved us that Proton Cars are striving 4 the better…BTW all the best to the team….keep it up with the winning momentum…show the big car makers that Proton can go further…!!!!
It shows that the Satria Neo S2000 has very competent chassis. PG Andersson even beat many full spec WRC cars (with turbo) in the Sweden and Monte Carlo rallies.
Next year, Proton Motorsport should equip and upgrade the S2000 neo into a fullblown WRC car (with aero and turbo). We would be prouder if the WRC Neo can beat those WRC Fiestas/Skodas/Minis/DS4s.
Credit given where credit is due. Congratulations Proton!
It’s time for Proton to think creativity and innovation again to replace Proton Satria Neo, I know you hate it when I say that….butta if Citroen C4 can do it, I’m sure DS3 could do it better than previous winning car.