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WRC 2 in Finland: Pietarinen claims home victory

Eerik Pietarinen had an untroubled run through the final leg of Neste Rally Finland as he led a finnish one-two in WRC 2.

Starting the day with a 53.0sec lead over Jari Huttunen, he extended it over Sunday's four tests to win by 1m 06.8sec in his Skoda Fabia R5.

Huttunen lacked speed compared to the front-runners and settled for second rather than push his Hyundai i20 R5 too hard and risk losing his best result of the year.

Behind them, all eyes were on a thrilling battle between Ford Fiesta R5 driver Gus Greensmith in third and the rapidly closing Kalle Rovanperä who was fighting back after breaking his car's suspension and losing the lead on Saturday.

Rovanperä was quickest on all of Sunday's stages in his Skoda, reducing almost all of Greensmith's 46sec overnight advantage, but the Briton did enough on the final Live TV Power Stage to cling on to the final podium spot by 1.9sec - denying the home crowd a Finnish 1-2-3.

The top six was filled by Pierre-Louis Loubet and Benito Guerra, the pair were too far behind the crews ahead to gain any positions on the final day after pace frustrations throughout the weekend.

Toyota development driver Hiroki Arai was the highest placed of the crews that restarted under Rally 2. He finished seventh, 11m 24.9sec ahead of Fabio Andolfi. Simone Tempestini and Murat Bostanci completed the top 10.

Zdroj: wrc.com