Mikko Hirvonen (r) celebrates with co-driver Jarmo Lethinen

Hirvonen bagged the second championship win of his career when he came home 9.5 seconds ahead of Marcus Gronholm, with Henning Solberg third.

It was Ford's first clean sweep since 1979, and the team's second successive win of the season.

A week ago, double world champion Gronholm won in Sweden.

606 DEBATE: Give your reaction to Hirvonen's win

Loeb's chances of success all but ended on Saturday's 12th stage when he crashed into a snow bank and lost more than eight minutes.

"Fantastic rally, absolutely fantastic," said Hirvonen, who considered the win more important than his first championship triumph in Australia last year.

"For me this is a real victory. I would say in Australia it came a little bit easy. I had such a good weekend (here) and was fighting all the way.

"I really enjoy it when you need to push hard. Against Sebastian and Marcus, to win is an incredible feeling."

Gronholm reflected: "It's good to take second. It would have been nice to win, but what can you do?"

Loeb was impressed with Hirvonen's performance.

"He knows well how it works now," said the Frenchman. "He'd already started to go really fast on dirt last year. He can become more and more dangerous."

The next round of the championship is 9-11 March in Mexico.

Rally of Norway final placings:

1 M Hirvonen (Fin) Ford 3 hours 28 mins 17 secs
2 M Gronholm (Fin) Ford @ 9.5 secs
3 H Solberg (Nor) Ford @ 3 mins 44 secs
4 P Solberg (Nor) Subaru @ 4:01
5 J-Mi Latvala (Fin) Ford @ 5:30
6 G Galli (Ita) Citroen @ 7:05
7 D Carlsson (Swe) Citroen @ 9:23
8 J Kopecky (Cze) Skoda @ 11:49
9 R Dalsjoe (Nor) Subaru @ 13:31
10 A Mikkelsen (Nor) Ford @ 14:28