Mikko Hirvonen

After a disastrous 2010 campaign in the World Rally Championship, Ford star Mikko Hirvonen needed to start 2011 in style.

Thankfully for the 30-year-old Finn, he did just that by winning Rally Sweden last month, flattening the challenge of seven-times world champion Sebastien Loeb and Citroen to lead home Mads Ostberg and Jari-Matti Latvala as Ford produced a clean sweep of the podium.

That result, which made him Ford's most successful WRC driver of all time in terms of wins, also made Hirvonen February's Castrol EDGE Performer of the Month and set him up for a strong year in the Castrol Rankings.

Hirvonen's February score of 1190, which netted him the second Performer of the Month Award of his career, just edged out Kyle Busch, who won races in both the NASCAR Nationwide and Truck Series during the month. NASCAR drivers filled the remainder of the top five positions courtesy of Jeff Gordon, Kurt Busch and Carl Edwards.

Ranking Year

Hirvonen started rallying at the age of 17 in an Opel Kadett, before rising through the Finnish ranks. In 2002 he won the Formula 2 class in his national championship in a Volkswagen Golf Kit Car, and then launched himself into the WRC.

In 2003, Hirvonen competed as the third, 'junior', driver in the Ford WRC line-up, before surprisingly being picked ahead of Colin McRae to join Subaru for the following year. It was a disappointing campaign, with fourth places in Argentina and Australia his best results, and he was left without a factory drive for 2005.

Driving a two-year-old Ford Focus, Hirvonen ran as a privateer, and went some way towards rebuilding his reputation with some strong showings, which included an unexpected third place - achieved on pace, rather than attrition - in Spain.

That brought him back to prominence, and Hirvonen rejoined Ford for the 2006 season as number two to the great Marcus Gronholm. During that year he scored his maiden WRC victory in Norway and finished third in the championship. The following season he took three wins on his way to another season-ending third position. For the second year running, Gronholm and Hirvonen had earned Ford the manufacturers' WRC title.

Following Gronholm's retirement, Hirvonen became the number one in the Ford team for 2008. Although he showed admirable consistency in becoming the first driver in history to score points in every round of a WRC season, his reputation took something of a knock. New team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala had shown Hirvonen-shading speed, although the youngster was also pretty ragged.

Hirvonen emerged from that shade in 2009, when four successive mid-season wins meant he led the WRC going into the final round: Rally GB. Hirvonen finished that event second, behind Loeb, and lost the title by just a single point.

Last year should have been the one in which Hirvonen took the next step, but instead it proved disastrous. It began phenomenally well as he won the opening rounds of both the WRC and the Intercontinental Rally Challenge to lift himself to fifth in the Castrol Rankings and earn the EDGE Performer of the Month award for January.

But that was as good as it got. A number of big accidents while under pressure - including one massive shunt that eliminated him from the lead of his home event - caused his form and his title aspirations to suffer hugely. In the end he finished the season only sixth and dropped outside the top 40 in the Castrol Rankings.

He may only lie 40th currently, but with the Fiesta WRC already looking like the car to have under the championship's new low-tech rules, nobody would be surprised to see him approaching the fringes of the top 10 before long.