The one-off alliance that could have been much more

Sport is full of tantalizing ‘what ifs’ that frustratingly linger in our minds as unanswered fantasies.

This one is no different, but the exception is we got a small tease.

For while Subaru unsuccessfully attempted to lure Marcus Grönholm out of retirement for the 2009 World Rally Championship season (before the manufacturer pulled the plug anyway), the big Finn ended up driving an S14 Impreza in Portugal that year anyway.

“Quite soon after my retirement, Subaru called me and offered a contract,” Grönholm tells DirtFish. “They had still a plan to do a full-time rally, but then the factory closed the door and Prodrive was without any program. So that was good, because it was not maybe a good idea to go back.

“And then even Mini called me, and I was testing once for Mini. It was difficult to… when the teams asked you to come, maybe I started to think about coming back. But then I remembered that, okay, I have stopped now, it’s not good to come back.”

A full program of events didn’t interest the two-time world champion, but a one-off? That was a different story,

Grönholm had already appeared in Portugal in 2008, the first year of his WRC retirement, driving a course car for the organizers. But 12 months later, with a proposal on the table from the organizer, the tourism board and Prodrive, he and Timo Rautiainen upped the ante by making an actual WRC return.

“That was nice, but to come to do one rally with only two test days, it’s not the best solution. But it was fun, we had fun,” Grönhlm reflects.

“The speed was there, but the head was still… you know,” he laughs. “I planned before the rally to not attack and go crazy, but OK, I forgot it immediately when I saw from the times that we can win this rally. Oi, oi, oi. Oi, oi, oi.”

Just like when Grönholm retired, Sébastien Loeb was the king of the WRC at this time. Portugal 2009 would prove to be the fourth in a run of five successive victories to start the season.

Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala provided the competition, along with Loeb’s team-mate Dani Sordo, but it was Grönholm who made the impact on the first day of Portugal.

Despite being out of action for 18 months, he was up to second (behind old team-mate Hirvonen) towards the end of Friday – and perhaps should have led had he got his tactics right.

“When you are a few years away, it’s not easy to come back,” Grönholm says. “But I felt quite OK after the test, and also the first times were really competitive. And I think we could have been in the lead the first day, but we chose to play tactics and, you know, slow down before the end of the stage.

“But we slowed down too much. We slowed down too much with Timo. We couldn’t remember that after the yellow board there were long, many corners before it was finished, so we lost a lot of time. I remember that one very well, yeah.”

The error earned Hirvonen a 15s overnight lead, with Grönholm dropping behind the two works Citroëns to fourth – 23.9s off first having started Friday’s final stage just 5.5s back.

But no matter, another day lay ahead and Grönholm was genuinely in the mix. That must’ve pleased him given all of the expectation and negative questioning he’d have faced had he been off the pace.

“Yeah, I was quite happy to see that,” he admits. “We were back there, where we left it, so that was good. And with a new car, of course completely new car for me [and] a new team, so it was good.

“It would have been fantastic to be leading,” adds Grönholm, “but we played tactics to not be leading, to have a good road position. I think we had a good road position. I was maybe four seconds behind Loeb.

“And then, my head was like ‘ah OK, I’m going to be back fighting with Loeb. Ha-ha ha-ha.’ And then I made a mistake.”

Attacking the Santa Clara stage which opened Saturday’s action, Grönholm was just too fast through the corner, hit the rear against a tree which spun the car around and into a roll.

All of that work, all of that buzz over his return, over in an unfortunate instant.

“It was not a bad roll,” Grönholm explains, “we were back on the wheels but there was some pipe to the turbo or intercooler or something, oil pipe, some problem so I couldn’t continue.

“The wheels were pointing right and it was not that big roll like normal. But OK, we were stuck there and it was finished.

“Ah! I felt a little bit stupid and ashamed because the co-driver put a lot of effort in and we wanted to show that we can be fast with the car. It ended a little bit, yeah. s*** way.”

Not all stories can go down a fairytale. But let’s pretend things went to plan – what could have been possible?

“A podium would have been really impossible, yes,” says Grönholm. “But to win, I don’t think so. But a good podium place would have been there and it would have been fantastic for us and for the team.

“But OK, s*** happens and that’s how it is.”

It proved to be one of three one-offs for a retired Grönholm in the WRC, preceding two outings at Rally Sweden in 2010 and 2019.

“[In 2010] one of my friends who was rallying, Mattias Therman, wanted to make a two-car team, so we rented a car from Malcolm,” Grönholm recalls. “It was not, you know, the best thing to do with a really limited test and go back to Sweden where I used to win.

“Only positive thing was that I won a stage which I have never won before. And that stage was called Sågen. It’s a nice stage, and I took the name to my restaurant in my shopping center. It was named Sågen after that stage. We went back to that rally trying to win that stage and I won it!

“The rest was s***. We had electrical problems for 30 minutes on one stage. And the speed was comme ci, comme ça – it was fifth, sixth on the stags, not fantastic.”

It at least went a lot better than 2019 when Grönholm hired a Toyota Yaris WRC for his 50th birthday.

“Oh la la,” Grönholm exhales. “The test was going fantastic, I was doing good times on the test road and comparing to the others, but when we started the rally I realized that 10 years… oi-oi-oi.

“Making the notes together with Timo, it was difficult for me to get the new stages on paper and I was too cautious with the notes, and when I came with a rally car it was flat flat flat and I had some stupid notes. And then I start to overdrive and then I hit the snowbank here and I hit the snowbank there so I regret that I started there.

“I should have gone home after the first super special stage in Sweden! Because they put us together with Sébastien Loeb. We were the last pair, and I beat him on the stage that time. So it would have been maybe the perfect time to go home after the first stage!

“I had the good feeling, because after the rally it was a s*** feeling. Why did I start? It was not even fun, because there was not a good stage time. OK, I was 51 at that time so old man, but I could have done better by not doing any mistakes.

“So I regret that one. But Portugal not. It was OK.”

It wrote a chapter in the Subaru and Grönholm story, but it’s still tempting to wonder how a full book would have read.