2008 Rally of Turkey

The event kicked off with a short superspecial stage on Thursday evening, which was won by Sébastien Loeb. On Friday - the first full day of the rally - he was due to run first and 'clean' the roads. This had a big impact on his performance (his stage times were up to 29 seconds quicker on the second pass through the stages) and meant that he would only win one stage on the day. Despite this he would still be leading the end of day one as the Ford drivers all took a tactical approach to the final stage of the day in order to secure a more advantageous road position for day two [2] - a tactic criticised by the Citroën Total team boss Olivier Quesnel.[3] Behind Loeb were the drivers for the BP-Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team and the Stobart VK M-Sport team, with the last of the Ford quartet, fifth place man Mikko Hirvonen, a mere 6.2 seconds behind Loeb at the end of day one. Ahead of Hirvonen was Gigi Galli in fourth place. Galli won three stages, with his teammate Henning Solberg winning one stage and finishing the day in second place. The remaining Ford driver was Jari-Matti Latvala who ended the day in third place after an astonishing performance that saw him take two stage wins (one by a margin of 15 seconds) and pick up two punctures.

Behind the leaders was Subaru driver Petter Solberg. The new Subaru was more disappointing than on its debut in Greece with Petter Solberg nearly 50 seconds off the pace. Matthew Wilson was in seventh spot, just over a minute behind despite suffering with a cold.[4] In the final points paying position was Dani Sordo. Sordo was running in fifth until suspension damage on stage 7[5] put him back into 8th place.

Daniel Elena and Sébastien Loeb

The Citroën teams fears about road sweeping were confirmed throughout the day as Loeb lost time to both factory Ford drivers. By the end of the day Loeb was 34 seconds adrift of new rally leader Mikko Hirvonen, yet Loeb still believed that "anything was possible[6]". Hirvonen had earlier said that he needed a lead of 50 seconds [7] to hang on to his lead throughout Sunday. With a lead of only 16 seconds over his teammate Latvala - there was still everything to play for going into Sunday. Behind the three leaders, the two Stobart drivers both had a less successful day. After starting brightly, Gigi Galli suffered turbo problems throughout stages 12 and 13 [8] which dropped him to 8th place by the end of the day. Galli had to retire from the rally at this stage as he was suffering from dehydration and exhaustion. Henning Solberg had a quiet day and gradually dropped time, finishing up just over two minutes off the pace in 4th place with Dani Sordo looming large, only 7 seconds behind. Petter Solberg and Matthew Wilson continued their steady runs in 6th and 7th place respectively.

Rally winner Mikko Hirvonen

With over sixty five kilometres of special stages still to go, the rally was still wide open. The tension was increased further after the first special stage of the day as Hirvonen stalled at the start line and lost nine seconds of his advantage to Latvala.[9] Everything had looked settled after special stage 18, with Latvala making a small mistake and losing the advantage he had gained at the previous stage, but the final thirty kilometre stage saw drama right to the end. Both the challengers to Hirvonen's lead were making significant inroads at the mid way split. Latvala was 4.3 seconds faster than Hirvonen, with Loeb 11.3 seconds faster[10] and putting both Ford drivers under enormous pressure - pressure that was increased when Hirvonen suffered a puncture near the end of the stage.[11] However, Latvala and Loeb's tyres were also very worn and they could not maintain their final stage attack. At the end Hirvonen hung on to win by 7.9 seconds from Latvala, with Loeb 25 seconds back in third.

Behind the podium finishers, Citroën's Dani Sordo easily picked off Henning Solberg to claim fourth place. Henning's brother Petter Solberg maintained his sixth position, never really being in a position to challenge the Stobart Ford driver. Matthew Wilson shrugged off his cold to finish in seventh with eighth place going to privateer Conrad Rautenbach, scoring his second points finish of the season. Federico Villagra and Barry Clark finished ninth and tenth, thus earning the Munchi's Ford team three valuable manufacturer points.