2012 WRC Rally Italia Sardegna: Hirvonen clinches first victory!

Mikko Hirvonen has secured his first victory of the season and his first ever with the Citroen World Rally Team after a flawless drive throughout the four days of Rally Italia Sardegna.

Hirvonen eventually finished a distant 1 minute 26 seconds ahead of M-Sport Ford teammates Evgeny Novikov and Ott Tanak, with Mads Ostberg managing to pull enough of a gap from Ogier to comfortably take fourth on his Adapta Ford.

Chris Atkinson could not take back fifth place from Ogier after a brake issue severely hampered him on the last stage; the Australian nurtured his car into sixth ahead of Andreas Mikkelsen.

Ford teammates Petter Solberg and Jari-Matti Latvala took ninth and twelfth respectively, the duo having dropped back due to separate incidents on Day 2.