First Swedish victory since 1978
With Marcus Grönholm and co-driver Timo Rautiainen taking the Swedish Rally victory, Ford completed its 100 percent success rate in 2006 while Gronholm extended his lead over rival Sebastien Loeb to four championship points. BP Ford World Rally Team boss Malcolm Wilson was delighted with the result.
"It`s there for everybody to see on this rally," Wilson said in the post Rally press conference. "Marcus has won the way he wants to win and for the team, we were leading from SS1."

"We were encouraged by the test results. As we all know, it`s very early days for the new car," Wilson continued. "There was a slight glitch this morning but fortunately it happened at the right time. We fixed it so they could go out and keep the pressure on. It`s the 50th WRC win for Ford and also the first time here since 1978, when Björn Waldegård won this rally, so it`s a very special moment for me."

While Gronholm enjoys his success, Mikko Hirvonen leaves Sweden having being classified just 12th after overheating problems with his Focus WRC 06.

"It`s a bit worrying what happened to Mikko," Wilson admitted. "We don`t really have the solution. We repaired the car and he`s done the rest of the rally, but it`s always a difficult time working out what it is. We`ve done lots of kilometres in testing and had no problems. We do have some plans for the future to make some changes in that area, but we`ll have to keep testing and find out what we can."

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