Triple World Rally Championship celebration for Ford

"This is another fantastic result," he said. "After my first test in the Focus RS here before Christmas, I thought I could take a good result in the rally but to win is just amazing. To win both my first two rallies in the car is a dream and it's good for the future. My birthday isn't so important now. The big thing for me is that the Focus has proved so competitive all weekend. BFGoodrich provided me with great tyres and I set some superb stage times. I just hope that the car will be as competitive on gravel because it would be great to continue this winning run on the next round.

"We had a scary moment on the final morning when hydraulic oil began to leak onto the windscreen midway through the last stage before service. I had to use the manual gearchange system and had no active differential. I carried on until the end of the stage but lost a lot of time." The leak was traced to a filter which exploded, spraying all the hydraulic oil onto the windscreen. The team replaced the filter and the Focus RS was restored to full health.

BP-Ford team director Malcolm Wilson expressed his delight at the team's second consecutive victory. "It continues the great start to the season that we made in Monte Carlo," he said. "I always felt confident that we could win here but I was concerned when Mikko had his problem on Friday in case it was repeated on Marcus' car. It wasn't and we went on to dominate the event."

Ford TeamRS director Jost Capito said: "To win the first two rallies of the season, both of which are very different in nature, with a car based on the new Ford Focus XR5 Turbo is fantastic. It's great that with the Focus RS WRC we can offer Marcus and Mikko a car in which they can show their talent."

Kronos Total Citroen Team principal Marc van Dalen was delighted by a very positive rally.

"We are very happy," he said. "As usual, Sébastien has been superb. He was the only person able to keep up with Marcus Grönholm, who was undoubtedly the quickest driver here. Xevi's performance has surpassed my expectations. He's been entirely consistent and not made a single mistake, to bring us a result that we thought was impossible given the high number of local specialists in World Rally Cars. He can quite rightly feel proud of himself. Dani made a small mistake, but he has brought the car back in one piece. Finally, the team has once more functioned without the slightest hiccup - as was also the case in Monte Carlo. This was a rally that many of our people were unfamiliar with, so their excellent performance was fantastic, and very encouraging as we all head off to Mexico for the first time."

Daniel Carlsson and Gigi Galli (both Mitsubishi) fought out a thrilling contest for the final podium place, swapping places four times in six stages and were rarely more than a second apart.

They entered the final test split by just 0.2sec but Carlsson pulled clear to beat the Italian by 7.0sec. Janne Tuohino (Citroen) was on course for fifth but stopped less than 1km from the finish of the last stage allowing Thomas Rådström to move up.

...continued