It was the decisive day of Wales Rally GB. Gaps inside the leading trio of the PWRC were so big, that nobody was eager to push too much. That is why, just like in two previous days, the main fight emerged between the crew of "Uspenskiy Rally Technica" Patrik Floding/Goran Bergsten, driving a Russian-built Subaru URT'09, and the crew of "Barwa Rally Team" Nasser Al-Attiyah/Giovanni Bernacchini, who competed in a similar car, but prepared by the Prodrive company.
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Patrik Flodin started the day with a stage victory, but on the next stage, SS14, Al-Attiyah was 4.6 seconds faster. Ahead of the last two stages only 13.8 seconds separated the Swede and the Qatari in Flodin's favour. However, the notorious 15th special stage (which deprived Hirvonen of any title chances after the bonnet locks on his car broke following a heavy landing, and where Sebastien Ogier went off), was over for Nasser with a dismal explanation "accident" in the organisers' documentation, meaning an off-road retirement. More details will be available later, but already now can we say that the car built in Russia has proven to be stronger again.
Moreover, if we virtually get rid off the 15-minutes penalty which was applied under SupeRally (on SS3 the rear right wheel got ripped off, and the crew had to retire after the stage finish), it will turn out that our crew would have finished the British PWRC round in second place, just behind the initial (he was later excluded due to technical irregularities) winner Eyvind Brynildsen, driving a superior Skoda S2000 machinery. But... It's rallying, and there're no "ifs". However Patrik can be proud of 5 stage victories that he recorded in the history books, and we say special thanks to him for this achievement! Such great results show the potential of the Russian car, its performance advantage over the rival vehicles. We remind you that last year it was our, Russian, car driven by Patrik Flodin to bring the first GroupN victory to the latest evolution of Subaru Impreza. And though this time we're only seventh at the finish, absurd misfortunes can happen to any team regardless how titled they are, but we clearly know that we build the best rally Subarus in the world!
We congratulate Sebastien Loeb and Daniel Elena on winning their sixth world championship, Jean Todt on becoming the FIA's new president, Patrik Flodin and Goran Bergsten on taking five stage victories on a great rally, and the whole our team on conclusion of rally season 2009!
