GUY Wilks swept to the top of the Junior World Rally Championship standings last night after a start to finish victory in the Rally of Mexico.

The 24-year-old Darlington-based Suzuki driver had built up an 11 minute lead over his team-mate and reigning JWRC champion Per-Gunnar Andersson since the start of the event.

And although he caused some consternation when starting yesterday's final assault late it emerged it was purely down to tactics - his race engineers opting to change every possible component on his car in order to ensure the Ignis finished the rally in style.

Wilks incurred penalties of 2mins30secs as a result but such was the distance between himself and his nearest rival, victory was never in doubt.

"It's been a very good weekend, I'm really pleased," said an as usual understated Wilks, who finished 12th overall.

"I kept extending (the lead) and everybody fell by the wayside - I like leading!

"On the two final stages, over the big compressions and dips, we just made sure we didn't hit the sump guard very hard, so it slowed us a bit. Everything went right - that's the way it should be."

For Wilks, victory was made even more sweet by the fact that only five of the regular 13 JWRC competitors had made the trip across the Atlantic.

As a consequence Kris Meeke, who had led the title race up until this weekend, failed to score any points leaving the door open for Wilks.

Meanwhile, Subaru driver Petter Solberg went top of the World Rally Championship standings after his triumph in Mexico.

The Norwegian led the event throughout in the new 2005-spec Subaru, which was making its debut on the North American stages.

He finished with a 34.5-second advantage on Peugeot's Marcus Gronholm to take his second successive win this season.

Gronholm's team-mate Markko Martin, who won last year's inaugural Mexican rally, finished third, with defending world champion Sebastien Loeb mounting an impressive comeback to finish fourth overall.

The Citroen driver had suffered damage to his car on the opening stage of the rally on Friday which saw him drop dramatically down the leaderboard to 16th.

But after pulling himself back up to sixth yesterday, Loeb then topped the times on both stages of the final leg yesterday to claim five points.

Published: 14/03/2005