A metal pin costing a couple of pounds helped to decide one of the closest finishes to the World Rally Championship on record yesterday. Mikko Hirvonen was battling Sebastien Loeb to the penultimate stage of the Rally of Great Britain when the pin that secures the bonnet of his Ford Focus broke free.

The bonnet flew up and on to the windscreen, forcing Hirvonen to stop in the mud of the forest stage outside Port Talbot, losing more than a minute to his French rival. Loeb was able to cruise the final stage to take victory in the rally and the world championship over the Finn by a single point. Matthew Wilson, the leading British driver, was sixth in his Ford.

“The bonnet flew up and blocked the windscreen,” Hirvonen said. “I had to stop. I couldn’t see anything. I had done all I could but that was it. [It’s] just one of those things.” There was also drama off the track after it emerged that the race had been saved with a late deal. Behind the scenes of the rally headquarters on Cardiff Bay, negotiations had been going on all week between officials from the Welsh Assembly and International Motor Sport, the commercial arm of the Motor Sports Association (MSA).

The future of the rally — a fixture in the World Rally Championship for 65 years — was in doubt after the Welsh Assembly decided to pull out of its five-year contract to base the event in Cardiff. The decision was said to have cost the rally more than £2 million in sponsorship cash this year, forcing the MSA to step in with a financial package to ensure the race went ahead. But the rift was visible to spectators as banners were stripped of the former Wales Rally GB title and replaced with the simple Rally GB name.

Negotiations produced a face-saving deal for the Welsh authorities, which means the rally will be back in Cardiff next year. But that will be the last, with hopes high that it will find a new and more adventurous home in the North East. A delegation of authorities from Newcastle travelled to Cardiff on a fact-finding mission yesterday and they are understood to be keen to launch a new-look Rally of Great Britain.

The event certainly looked unloved and unwanted last weekend, with the service park sited next to a recycling centre and the ceremonial start from a waterside plaza watched by a few hundred people — a big contrast with the more glorious days of the event when thousands lined the streets of Cardiff to watch the competitors roar by.

Not that Loeb worried who was watching as he claimed a record sixth consecutive title. He arrived in Cardiff trailing Hirvonen by a point but then showed why he is the most successful rally driver in history. In the end, it was a straight duel between the two men over 16 treacherous stages of Welsh forest: Loeb won nine stages to Hirvonen’s seven, with a first title for the Finn eluding his grasp in that dramatic finale.

There can be no doubting Loeb’s record; he won seven of 12 rallies this season and Rally GB was the 54th victory of his career. The Frenchman, 35, was delighted with a win he described as the most intense of his career. “It was incredible,” he said. “We have had some highs and some lows this year but we finished it with a victory.”

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