The MRF Tyres Mitsubishi team scored a double victory on the Indonesian round of the 2007 Asia Pacific Rally Championship with a 1st and 2nd in the Rally of Indonesia. Valimaki’s win ended the run of victories by Australian Cody Crocker, but even though the Subaru driver finished only 5th it was enough to secure him and co-driver Ben Atkinson a second APRC title provided the pair cross the startline in the China Rally in November.

Finnish driver Jussi Valimaki was in dominant form from the outset handling the rough conditions and extreme heat to score his second victory of the season. The team had found a good setup in pre-rally testing and Valimaki was fastest on all stages on the first day except one. "All the rally went very very well for us, all the time under control so very happy for the team, the mechanics, Mitsubishi and MRF Tyres. We needed this victory and the setup on this rally suggests that we can continue to do this in the next event in China" said Valimaki at the final finish control.

Japanese team-mate Katsu Taguchi was 2nd, shadowing Valimaki for most of the event but settling for 2nd to ensure a 1-2 finish for the team " very good result for our team, absolutely! I pushed hard on the first day, maximum attack but today maybe I was pushing too hard, I missed a lot of corners, some over-shoots, sometimes understeer but still we are 2nd - but in China I want one more place up – win in China".

Hiroshi Yanagisawa also from Japan was 3rd in the CUSCO Subaru and young Indian driver Gaurev Gill ensured a great weekend for MRF by finishing 4th .

Crocker, with co-driver Ben Atkinson, had a tough weekend in the heat and rugged roads of Indonesia, but the pair battled on to grab the necessary points to win the championship with one round to go.

The back-to-back title is a triumph for Crocker, and follows his domination of the Australian Championship from 2002 to 2005 when he won three straight national titles.

A puncture on day one ruined any chance of an eleventh straight outright title for the Victorian, but the fifth, combined with a second placing in heat two, added six championship points to his season’s tally.

After gathering a perfect score of 64 points from the first four rounds of the

2007 season, the six points were two more than he needed to secure the overall title for Subaru and his Motor`Image team.

"After the flat tyre on SS5 yesterday we were out of contention for the Indonesian title, so the focus became getting through the rally and securing the APRC title," Crocker said.

"While we could be disappointed with fifth here, the real story for us and the team is a second straight championship."

"We’ve had an incredible run, ten straight event wins, that run was never going to go on for ever in a sport like this."

"But for us to add two APRCs to three ARCs across five years is just incredible."

"Full credit to the team. We were in many ways a new combination this year, running for MotorImage for the first time. But everything has gelled well. Ben has done a brilliant job again and we can now go to China and really enjoy the fact that we’ve achieved our goal the year."

Crocker team-mate Indonesian Rifat Sungkar was expected to do well on his home event but a series of punctures put paid to any chance of a good result.

Brian Green finished 7th in APRC, but his team-mate Naren Kumar was not so lucky, a broken diff ending his event.

The next event is Rally China November 9 to 11.

FINAL OVERALL CLASSIFICATION

Results – Rally Indonesia

1, Jussi Valimaki, 03:06:36.0

2, Katsuhiko Taguchi, 03:08:18.0

3, Hiroshi Yanagisawa, 3:09:21.0

4, Gaurav Gill, 3:11:00.0

5, Cody Crocker, 03:11:15.0

6, Rifat Sungkar, 03:13:15.0

7, Brian Green, 03:22:48.0