SS17: ...and still Champion

Sebastien Loeb has won his fourth straight drivers' championship. The Citroen ace drove a safe rally all three days over treacherous terrain to bring his C4 to the end of the stage third overall. At stage's end Loeb congratulated Marcus Gronholm on giving him a good fight for the fourth title and went about celebrating his remarkable achievement.

The final stage of the day was also the final stage for Gronholm, who retires after this season. The double world champion was disappointed that his last outing couldn't be celebrated with a world championship, but he was content that he had pushed Loeb all the way to the final stage of the final day.

Mikko Hirvonen finished seventh on the stage, and managed to add some drama to the final few kilometres. The Finn went off course, damaging his front bumper, before rejoining the road. There was no significant damage to his Ford Focus RS, but even he was a little surprised at the lack in concentration. Hirvonen still managed to keep a 15.2 second lead over Gronholm making him the winner of Wales Rally GB.

Jari-Matti Latvala won the stage, making it a clean sweep of the day for the second day running. The Stobart Ford driver managed to just get ahead of Mads Ostberg for 10th overall. The dominance has to be a bit disappointing as Latvala would have been on the podium had it not been for the 10-minute penalty assessed at the end of day one. Gronholm finished the day second, 1.2 seconds behind Latvala. Dani Sordo surged to a surprising third on the stage to finish his rally fifth overall.

Loeb was fourth on the stage, and was the final podium holder in the overall classifications. Petter Solberg was fifth at test's end, 1.9 seconds behind Loeb and fourth overall. Henning Solberg placed just behind his younger brother on stage, 2.1 seconds back, but finished his rally further down the order in 14th. Ostberg completed the top eight finishing 3.7 seconds behind Hirvonen. Matthew Wilson took sixth overall, 56.6 seconds over Chris Atkinson who continued to have a miserable final day. Manfred Stohl took the final points paying position in eighth, 54.2 seconds behind the dueling pair.