Zoom Ketomaa moving ahead

The third round of the Finnish Rally Championship was a successful run for Subaru Dealer Team Finland. Double Finnish Champion Jari Ketomaa claimed Group N victory in only his second rally with the new TMR 08 Subaru Impreza WRX STI.

After completing good testing sessions, Ketomaa and co-driver Miika Teiskonen felt confident before the Nilsiä Rally and started out with a clear aim to fight for victory.

"With Tommi Mäkinen Racing we did careful preparations and lots of development work before this event. Our pace was fast already on the previous event, but now I could really go for it," Ketomaa stated.

Ketomaa was 3.9 seconds behind the leader after completing the opening two stages, and following that he controlled the rally by accomplishing four of Group N's fastest stages times. The Finnish Subaru driver eased off his speed on the final run, but nonetheless won by a margin of 26.3 seconds ahead of Matti Rantanen's Mitsubishi.

The event's winner was Jussi Välimäki aboard his Group A Mitsubishi, with Ari Vihavainen second at the wheel of a Ford Focus WRC (+11.4 seconds). Jari Ketomaa finished third overall (+16 seconds).

"We did not have any problems during the rally," Ketomaa reported. "We could stay on the road even if there were some close moments between the snow banks. "

"This result was important for Subaru and also for myself. Now the Finnish winter season is over and I will concentrate on my next PWRC event, Rally Argentina on 27-30 March," he said.

Everyone at Tommi Mäkinen Racing was very pleased with Ketomaa's victory, as a first place is always an important result for the whole team.

"Development of this new car is still at the very beginning, but the TMR 08 Subaru Impreza and Ketomaa did show their speed," declared Tommi Mäkinen Racing Ltd's General Manager, Esko Reiners. "We already knew the potential of the car and this event just confirmed it. Now we start to develop it for gravel events."

It could have been a Subaru Dealer Team one-two at the Nilsiä Rally, but Teemu Arminen had no choice but to retire despite a great start to the event. He constantly remained inside the top three of the opening stages and was actually leading by 1.5 seconds when his rally came to an abrupt end with special stage 4.