Hirvonen has now won three times in his World Rally career
Finland's Mikko Hirvonen took victory in the Rally of Japan to record his second win of the World Rally season.
The Ford driver had begun the day with a 38-second lead and maintained the gap over Citroen's Daniel Sordo, with Ford's Henning Solberg a distant third.
Britain's Matthew Wilson was fourth, more than six minutes behind Hirvonen.
Triple world champion Sebastien Loeb attempted a comeback on Sunday after crashing on Saturday, but he eventually quit on the penultimate stage.
The Frenchman remains four points behind championship leader Marcus Gronholm with just two races remaining.
Finn Gronholm retired on Friday after crashing into a tree stump.
Hirvonen's winning time was three hours, 23 minutes and 57.6 seconds.
"It was so, so difficult this weekend," he said. "When we came here the only thing was to try to help Marcus fight against Sebastien and that's what we did.
"After Marcus went off it was just a very hard one and a half days. I'm waiting for Marcus to buy me one big beer!"
Loeb won four stages on Sunday, but he was forced to retire with oil pressure problems.
"It's a tremendous disappointment but we are still in contention for the title," he said. "But the idea of having to win both the remaining rounds is quite stimulating."
Official final results
1. Mikko Hirvonen (Finland) Ford 3:23:57.600
2. Daniel Sordo (Spain) Citroen +00:37.400
3. Henning Solberg (Norway) Ford 04:33.700
4. Matthew Wilson (Britain) Ford 06:37.900
5. Luis Perez Companc (Argentina) Ford 06:40.400
6. Manfred Stohl (Austria) Citroen 07:04.300
7. Federico Villagra (Argentina) Ford 11:15.300
8. Katsuhiko Taguchi (Japan) Mitsubishi 20:40.100
9. Gabriel Pozzo (Argentina) Mitsubishi 21:53.000
10. Armindo Araujo (Portugal) Mitsubishi 24:13.500
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