In an incredibly close battle to the finish at Rally Norway, Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena managed to take home yet another victory for Citroën Total, just barely edging out factory Ford snow ace Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen in the end. What’s incredibly impressive about this is that while Loeb has indeed been a consistently impressive driver throughout his WRC career, he still had yet to master the art of snow rallying, having only won such an event once before, at Rally Sweden in 2004. Last year, he crashed out at Rally Norway—a true oddity in the World of Loeb. But all that’s past now, as clearly he’s melted his snow demons away, leaving Hirvonen and the factory Ford team’s other formidable snow duo of Jari-Matti Latvala and Miikka Anttila (who finished 3rd) frozen some way behind him.

But one question remains: now that Petter Solberg is back in the game (and on his home turf, no less), how did he do at Rally Norway?

For their inaugural rally, Petter and co-driver Phil Mills placed a points-scoring 6th—not too shabby for a lowly 2004-spec Citroën Xsara against a pack largely comprised of factory cars. Big brother Henning Solberg and his fellow Norwegian co-driver Cato Menkerud finished a couple spots ahead with another 4th place for their Stobart VK M-Sport Ford Rally Team.

[Photos: Automobilsport and Willy Weyens]