The 2008 Rally Japan was the fourteenth and penultimate round of the

2008 World Rally Championship season The 2008 World Rally Championship was the 36th season of the FIA World Rally Championship. The season consisted of 15 rallies and began on 24 January, with the 2008 Monte Carlo Rally. Frenchman Sébastien Loeb successfully retained the Drivers ...

. The event saw

Sébastien Loeb Sébastien Loeb (; born 26 February 1974) is a French professional rally, racing and rallycross driver. He is the most successful driver in the World Rally Championship (WRC), having won the world championship a record nine times in a row. He ho ...

clinch his fifth consecutive world drivers title with his drive to a third-place finish. The event was won by

Mikko Hirvonen Mikko Hirvonen (born 31 July 1980) is a Finnish former rally driver, and a current Rally-Raid driver, who drove in the World Rally Championship. He placed third in the drivers' championship and helped Ford to the manufacturers' title in both 2 ...

in a

Ford Focus The Ford Focus is a compact car (C-segment in Europe) manufactured by Ford Motor Company from 1998 until 2025. It was created under Alexander Trotman's Ford 2000 plan, which aimed to globalize model development and sell one compact vehicle worl ...

, who led the event from start to finish to claim his third win of the season. Second place went to Hirvonen's teammate

Jari-Matti Latvala Jari-Matti Latvala (; born 3 April 1985) is a Finnish rally driver who has competed in the World Rally Championship (WRC). His co-driver for most of his career was Miikka Anttila, who co-drove for Latvala between the 2003 Rallye Deutschland and ...

, his fifth podium of the year and his first since the

Rally of Turkey The Rally of Turkey (also known as Anatolian Rally) is a rally competition on the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) schedule. History First international rally in Turkey was held in 1972, starting and finishing in Istanbul. In 1999, the idea o ...

back in June. Stobart M-Sport Ford's

François Duval François Duval (born 18 November 1980) is a Belgium, Belgian rally (sports), rally driver. Career 1999–2004 Francois Duval is the son of former rally driver Rene Duval. With victories in four events Duval won the Belgian Citroën Saxo Chal ...

crashed out from second place during the sixth stage. Duval was not injured in the crash, but his co-driver Patrick Pivato sustained a fractured pelvis and

tibia The tibia (; : tibiae or tibias), also known as the shinbone or shankbone, is the larger, stronger, and anterior (frontal) of the two Leg bones, bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates (the other being the fibula, behind and to the outsi ...

. He was rushed to the hospital, and internal bleeding was discovered during surgery. On day two of the rally, after a second operation, his condition was described as critical but stable. On the 19th stage,

Toni Gardemeister Toni Gardemeister (born 31 March 1975) is a Finnish professional rally driver in the World Rally Championship. After previously competing for SEAT's, Mitsubishi's, Škoda's and Ford's factory teams, as well as for privateer teams, he joined the ...

took the

Suzuki World Rally Team The Suzuki World Rally Team, also known as the Suzuki WRC Challenge, was Suzuki's factory backed World Rally Championship team, as part of the Suzuki Sport organization. The team debuted for the first time at the 2007 Tour de Corse in France. Aft ...

's first-ever stage win. Suzuki also had their most successful rally to date with Gardemeister finishing sixth and teammate Per-Gunnar Andersson recording his best ever finish of fifth position. The event was originally planned to run on October 24−26, but as to make full use of venues, including the

Sapporo Dome The , currently known as for sponsorship reasons, is a stadium located in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan, and is primarily used for association football. It is the home field of the association football club Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo, and was also h ...

, with its tenant the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters possibly needing it for the

Japan Series The Japan Series ( , officially the Japan Championship Series, ), also the Nippon Series, is the annual championship series in Nippon Professional Baseball, the top baseball league in Japan. It is a best-of-seven series between the winning cl ...

, the event was approved by FIA to be delayed for a week. The dome was not needed for baseball, as the Ham Fighters didn't make it to the Japan Series. The

Super Special Stage was the second to be held in indoor venues in WRC history.

Results

Special stages

All dates and times are JST (

UTC+9 UTC+09:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +09:00. During the Japanese occupations of British Borneo, Burma, Hong Kong, Dutch East Indies, Malaya, Philippines, Singapore, and French Indochina, it was used as a common time with ...

Championship standings after the event

Drivers' championship

Manufacturers' championship

References

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...