Quote Originally Posted by focus206 View Post
Okay, but what is that you disagree with? You don't think that Hirvonen was a driver capable of winning the championship and offering tough opposition?
To answer your question directly: I think Hirvonen was a very capable driver and may have won several championships in a different era; my point is that he was really the only competition Loeb had, after Gronholm retired. In previous years, there were many ex-champions fighting for victory, say in the 90s, where you had Biasion, Auriol, Kankkunen, Sainz, then McRae, Makinen, Burns, Gronholm, plus specialists like Panizzi, Liatti, etc. In those years, you were never really sure who was going to win any given rally. The second half of the Loeb era was a far cry from those days..I am well aware that Loeb beat all of them during the first half of his reign, but after Gronholm went, there wasn't very much......depth to the competition.