The newly crowned two-time FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) champion Sebastien Ogier scored his eighth win of the 2014 season at the final WRC event of the year in Rally GB behind the wheel of his Volkswagen Polo WRC.
The win - his eighth of the season - was relatively an easy one as his Volkswagen team-mates Jari-Matti Latvala and Andreas Mikklesen both crashed out of the rally early. It fell to Mikko Hirvonen - who is calling time on his WRC career - to try and put up some sort of challenge as the Finn finished just over 37 seconds behind Ogier.
Tyre damage for Chris Meeke allowed Mads Ostberg to score his first podium finish since June ahead of the Hyundai i20 WRC of Belgium's Thierry Neuville.
The WRC retirement of the 34-year-old Hirvonen was a talking point of the rally as the Finn used to be a regular race winner, and occasionally a title contender, with the factory Ford rally team.
Hirvonen will be most remembered for winning 15 WRC events and giving the great Sebastien Loeb a run for his money in 2009 and 2011, when he finished just one and eight points behind the Frenchman, respectively, in second place in the drivers' points standings.
Hirvonen finished 2014 in fourth place in the drivers' standings, which turned out to be the best performance over the year by a WRC driver who was not behind the wheel of a factory Volkswagen machine.
WRC RALLY GB RESULTS (Top 10)
1) Sebastien Ogier (Volkswagen Motorsport)
2) Mikko Hirvonen (M-Sport Ltd)
3) Mads Ostberg (Citroen Total Abu Dhabi WRT)
4) Thierry Neuville (Hyundai Motorsport)
5) Elfyn Evans (M-Sport Ltd)
6) Kris Meeke (Citroen Total Abu Dhabi WRT)
7) Ott Tanak (M-Sport Ltd)
8) Jari-Matti Latvala (Volkswagen Motorsport)
9) Martin Prokop (Jipocar Czech National Team)
10) Hayden Paddon (Hyundai Motorsport N)
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