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Juho Hanninen has secured the Skoda team's maiden Intercontinental Rally Challenge victory after a dominating run at Rally Russia with fellow Skoda driver Jan Kopecky coming in second.

Hanninen was the star of the show - the Finn won every stage bar one and secured his second consecutive victory at the Russian event.

Although Kopecky did not have the same pace as his team-mate, the Czech kept ahead of the competition and brightened Skoda's win by making it a one-two victory for the team.

The 15-stage Russian programme saw two runs cancelled on day two, but in the end it would not have made much of a difference as Hanninen's pace was simply too strong to beat: he ended the rally with a 1:20.9 advantage on team-mate Kopecky and a massive 4:06.0 on third place Giandomenico Basso of the Abarth team.

The only stage win that didn't go to Hanninen was conceded to Abarth's Anton Alen but overall the Italian outfit could not reach Skoda's level, with punctures and mechanical issues further hampering their efforts.

Alen was running under SupeRally regulations on the final day and he can at least be content at have battled his victorious countryman for stage wins and succeeding in bettering him once.

It also has to be noted that the Peugeot camp did not participate in Rally Russia, leaving Kris Meeke, Freddy Loix and Nicolas Vouilloz out of the action.

Abarth did not have the pace to fight Skoda but the three Peugeot drivers might have given Hanninen and Kopecky a real fight.

Patrick Flodin's regular rhythm paid off, the Swede bringing his Uspenskiy Rally Tecnica Subaru Impreza WRC STi into fourth position overall.

Guy Wilks displayed the Proton Satria Neo S2000's good potential and was regularly coming ahead of the Abarth cars from the start.

However, a puncture and a malfunctioning car jack cost him over three and a half minutes on SS7 and took him off the provisional podium - which would have been an excellent result for a car still in its development phase.

Alen, who won here in 2007, finished sixth ahead of Franz Wittmann's Interwetten Racing Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX.

The top ten was completed by Boris Zimin and his Mitsubishi, followed by Kaspar Koiytla's Honda Civic/ Koiytla emerges as the winner in the 2WD category.

Rally-Live.com / Eurosport