Ole Christian Veiby beat his competitors and secured the victory in the Junior World Rally Championship (JWRC) category at Rally Finland this afternoon. With that stunning result, he also climbed to second place in the overall championship standings.

The 20-year-old, who is the youngest one in his category, is closing up on the Junior world champion title. He competes for the Finnish team Printsport and this weekend he could put the technical problems that he has battled against earlier this season behind once and for all.

"Now I could finally focus completely on my driving. The car worked perfectly" said a smiling Ole Christian Veiby.

Ahead of the season, and just last week, Veiby stated that he would be disappointed if he did not win his category at Rally Finland. At the same time he also pointed out that the most important thing is however to reduce the gap to Italian Simone Tempestini, who tops the overall JWRC classification. The same applied for the small difference to Frenchman Terry Folb in second place. Veiby now has 50 points, while Tempestini has 68 points.

"Our effort in Finland reduced Tempestini's advantage with seven points. I managed to pass Terry Folb in the overall standings, which puts me in second place in the championship. It feels great to have come this far, but there are still three events left to the season" he said.

"We did the job that we came here to do, but so did Tempestini, who scored a whole bunch of points as well. For us, it was absolutely necessary to win here in order to have a fair chance at the championship title. As the situation is right now, we are definitely in the game" he added.

Rally Finland is the event that Ole Christian Veiby has been most keen on winning. The victory is not only special to him, but also to his team.

"Printsport is a Finnish team. In that way, this is home turf for us and that is why this is a special win. This event is unique when it come to challenges with high speed, jumps and corners. Something happens all the time. I have competed in Finland both during the winter and spring, which has been great practice in terms of speed and that is an important factor in us doing so well at Rally Finland this weekend" said Veiby.

Did everything go according to plan during Rally Finland?

The car worked perfectly, the team did a fantastic job and we were well prepared after a lot of driving in Finland. We had good pacenotes that we could trust. The only thing that did not work entirely well was the voice of my co-driver Stig Rune Skjærmoen. He has struggled with a sore throat, but I could still hear him. Overall, this was a very successful rally" said the 20-year-old.

The next round of the JWRC takes place in Germany, on tarmac, and that is a rally that Ole Christian Veiby has never done before.

"Both me and my co-driver Stig Rune are looking forward to it. We know that the roads are demanding and even more challenging if it rains" said Veiby.

Foto: Even Management