Marcus Grönholm
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| Marcus Grönholm | |
|---|---|
 Grönholm at the 2006 Rally Argentina press conference. |
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| World Rally Championship record | |
| Nationality |  Finnish |
| Active years | 1989 – 2007 |
| Teams | Toyota, Peugeot, Ford |
| World rallies | 150 |
| Championships | 2 (2000, 2002) |
| Wins | 30 |
| Podium finishes | 60 |
| Stage wins | 540 |
| Points | 615 |
| First world rally | 1989 1000 Lakes Rally |
| First win | 2000 Swedish Rally |
| Last win | 2007 Rally New Zealand |
| Last world rally | 2007 Wales Rally GB |
Marcus "Bosse" Grönholm (born February 5, 1968 in Kauniainen) is a former Finnish rally driver. Driving for Peugeot, he won the World Rally Championship in 2000 and 2002. After Peugeot withdrew from the World Rally Championship, Grönholm moved to Ford for the 2006 season and placed second in the drivers' world championship, losing the title to Sébastien Loeb by one point. The next year he again placed second, four points behind Loeb. He and his co-driver Timo Rautiainen retired from rallying after the 2007 season.
Grönholm also won the 2002 Race of Champions, taking home the Henri Toivonen Memorial Trophy and earning the title "Champion of Champions". At the 2006 Race of Champions, he formed team Finland with Heikki Kovalainen and the pair won the Nations' Cup.
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[edit] Career
[edit] Early career
Marcus' father, Ulf "Uffe" Grönholm, had been an active rally driver in the late 1970s to early 1980s, and with measurable success too, winding up twice Finnish champion. He was killed during a practice run for Hankiralli on February 25, 1981 in Kirkkonummi. Despite this connection, his son, only 13 years old at the time of his father's death, was latterly to refute any suggestion that it was Ulf, and not fellow rally-driving cousin (and occasional Peugeot factory squad team-mate at various points during the early 2000s), Sebastian Lindholm, who tempted him into following in his father's footsteps by also participating in the sport.[1] In his teens Grönholm was fond of motocross as a recreational activity, but a serious knee injury forced a switch to boxing.
Grönholm featured in various bit-part roles in the world series throughout the 1990s, most notably with Toyota with whom he drove Celicas and Corolla WRCs. Much considered as a late-bloomer he didn't become a 'factory driver' until his early 30s. A staggering string of fastest stage times one year as a privateer, on the final day of the Rally Finland, subsequently brought him to the attention of such factory teams as Ford, Toyota and Peugeot, who all presented him with offers for further employment. It was only when he joined the latter marque, championship newcomers for 1999, that he began to enjoy such meteoric success.
[edit] 1999-2005: Peugeot
After not even having participated on the season-opening round in Monte Carlo in 2000, so muted were his French squad's expectations for their new Finn, he took his first championship win on the Swedish Rally the following month, with the 206 WRC. Consequent wins, including on his home round of the series, were sufficient to see off closest points challenger, Subaru's Richard Burns and land a shock first title after finishing second to the Englishman in the Rally of Great Britain. After an irksome and unsuccessful championship defence in 2001 during which assorted mechanical problems kept him down to 4th overall in the points table, he easily won his second title in 2002, at times displaying Michael Schumacher-esque dominance of the sport.
Grönholm initially seemed to be carrying on from where he left off in the opening rounds of 2003: He led the season-opening Monte Carlo Rally, threatening to score a shock win over the armada of Citroens until his Peugeot team's customary misfortune struck, as well as securing astounding early-season victories in New Zealand and Argentina - the latter a stirring comeback drive from sixth to deny a time-penalised Carlos Sainz. But he failed to cobble together a sufficiently consistent points-scoring run to truly have a hope in retaining his title. With the subsequent introduction of the bulkier Peugeot 307 WRC by the team's parent marque for 2004, he was to score only three more rally wins over the following two seasons. Two of those came in Finland; the remainder, an emotional inherited victory in Japan after the retirement of long-time leader Petter Solberg's Subaru, to follow on from the tragic Wales Rally GB just a week beforehand, where the sport had witnessed Peugeot team-mate Markko Martin's navigator Michael Park's death in a crash. With the PSA Group representative teams jointly withdrawing from the championship for 2006, Grönholm was left to search for employment elsewhere.
[edit] 2006-2007: Ford
For the 2006 season, Grönholm switched to the Ford team, driving their all-new 2006-specification Focus WRC. On his debut, in January, he won his first ever tarmac rally in Monte Carlo, beating Sébastien Loeb by over a minute, albeit beaten by the Frenchman on the road with the championship's unliked 'Superally' regulations coming to his rescue as a shunt for the Citroën hastened its exit from Leg One. Although he was to follow this up with an entirely credible win in the second event of the season, Sweden, subsequent events saw Loeb surge past into a comfortable lead: the Frenchman was to never finish below second place in every event he entered, while his adversary was left to rue a string of retirements and errors that stymied his challenge.
In the meantime, the hopeful Finn collected victories over Loeb in Greece and Finland. Loeb's hopes seemed to be coming to fruituition when yet another victory in Cyprus brought him to the brink of the title; however he was to suffer his own blow days later when injury from a biking accident forced him out of the last four rounds of the series. Marcus was able to push within one point of the lead in the total standings as Loeb recovered, but his claim to the title was finally extinguished when he rolled out of contention on the first leg of the penultimate event in Australia. Some solace for Gronholm, though, came in that another victory in Great Britain ahead of team-mate Mikko Hirvonen was to confirm the manufacturers' title for his Ford team over Loeb-less Kronos Citroen.
The 2007 season started in good fashion for Grönholm. He claimed third place in the 75ème Rallye Automobile de Monte-Carlo behind the dominant returning works Citroens, and then the top spot in the Swedish Rally, mirroring the previous year's result. While the usually consummate Loeb tumbled out of the points from a potentially auspicious position in both Norway and Sardinia, Grönholm remained consistent and after winning for the 28th time in his career over the Citroen titan in Greece, led the championship by nine points over Loeb over the championship's summer break. At the 2007 Rally Finland, Ford secured a one-two with Grönholm taking the win and Hirvonen the second place ahead of Loeb. At the next rally, the 2007 Rallye Deutschland, Grönholm got distracted by a cow along the road and made a driving error while trying to secure a second place ahead of hard-charging François Duval, dropping him to fourth place behind his team-mate.
Then came New Zealand, where after a tight battle over all three legs, Grönholm took a victory of historic slenderness over Loeb. The final winning margin between the two represented the closest ever in the history of the World Rally Championship: 0.3 seconds. This victory put him ten points clear in the championship with five rounds remaining. Podium finishes in Spain and France kept him on track for the championship, but after crashing out early at both Japan and Ireland the championship lead switched back to Loeb. Second place at Wales Rally GB was not enough to dislodge Loeb and so Grönholm finished the season as runner-up.
On 14 September 2007, Grönholm announced long-rumoured plans to retire from rallying at the end of the 2007 season, stating that "I wanted to stop while I still had the speed to win rallies. I didn't want to leave the decision too late so that I wasn't capable of winning any longer",[2] also citing the opportunity ahead of him to potentially retire as a three-time World Rally Champion.
[edit] 2008: Rallycross
On April 16 Marcus Grönholm, at a press conference in the Kungsträdgården of Stockholm, announced a limited programme to take part in at least five rounds of the FIA European Championships for Rallycross Drivers. Grönholm will participate in the series as team member of Andreas Eriksson’s Ford Team RS Europe and, like the 2003 Swedish rally champion, is going to drive a brand new 4WD Ford Fiesta ST European Rallycross Car (ERC) with 560 bhp and 800+ Nm torque that does the from standstill to 100 km/h sprint in 2.2 seconds, faster than any current Formula One car.
[edit] Titles
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Year Title Car 1991 Finnish champion (Group N) Toyota Celica GT-Four 1994 Finnish champion (Group A) Toyota Celica Turbo 4WD 1996 Finnish champion (Group A) Toyota Celica GT-Four 1997 Finnish champion (Group A) Toyota Celica GT-Four 1998 Finnish champion (Group A) Toyota Corolla WRC /
Toyota Celica GT-Four2000 World Rally Champion Peugeot 206 WRC 2002 World Rally Champion Peugeot 206 WRC 2002 Champion of Champions Varies
[edit] WRC wins
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# Event Season Co-driver Car 1 
49th International Swedish Rally2000 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC 2 
30th Rally New Zealand2000 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC 3 50th Neste Rally Finland2000 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC 4 
13th Telstra Rally Australia2000 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC 5 51st Neste Rally Finland2001 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC 6 14th Telstra Rally Australia2001 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC 7 
57th Network Q Rally of Great Britain2001 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC 8 51st Uddeholm Swedish Rally2002 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC 9 
30th Cyprus Rally2002 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC 10 52nd Neste Rally Finland2002 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC 11 32nd Propecia Rally New Zealand2002 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC 12 15th Telstra Rally Australia2002 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC 13 52nd Uddeholm Swedish Rally2003 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC 14 33rd Propecia Rally New Zealand2003 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC 15 
23º Rally Argentina2003 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 206 WRC 16 54th Neste Rally Finland2004 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 307 WRC 17 55th Neste Rally Finland2005 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 307 WRC 18 
2nd Rally Japan2005 Timo Rautiainen Peugeot 307 WRC 19 
74ème Rallye Automobile Monte-Carlo2006 Timo Rautiainen Ford Focus RS WRC 06 20 55th Uddeholm Swedish Rally2006 Timo Rautiainen Ford Focus RS WRC 06 21 
53rd Acropolis Rally2006 Timo Rautiainen Ford Focus RS WRC 06 22 56th Neste Oil Rally Finland2006 Timo Rautiainen Ford Focus RS WRC 06 23 
7th Rally of Turkey2006 Timo Rautiainen Ford Focus RS WRC 06 24 36th Propecia Rally New Zealand2006 Timo Rautiainen Ford Focus RS WRC 06 25 62nd Wales Rally GB2006 Timo Rautiainen Ford Focus RS WRC 06 26 56th Uddeholm Swedish Rally2007 Timo Rautiainen Ford Focus RS WRC 06 27 
4º Supermag Rally Italia Sardinia2007 Timo Rautiainen Ford Focus RS WRC 06 28 54th BP Ultimate Acropolis Rally of Greece2007 Timo Rautiainen Ford Focus RS WRC 06 29 57th Neste Oil Rally Finland2007 Timo Rautiainen Ford Focus RS WRC 07 30 37th Propecia Rally New Zealand2007 Timo Rautiainen Ford Focus RS WRC 07
[edit] References
- ^ Hart, Jeremy. Gronholm, the purring engine. Scotland on Sunday. Retrieved on 2007-09-15.
- ^ Official: Gronholm confirms plans for post-2007. Crash.net. Retrieved on 2007-09-15.
[edit] External links
- Official website
- Ford Media - Things you didn't know about...
- M-Sport Ford WRC team website
- Rallybase stats page
- WRC Archive stats page
- Marcus' profile at WRC.com
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