Sébastien Loeb-Daniel Elena (Citroën)Champion of Rallye De France - 2008 Tour de Corse
CORSICA : October 12, 2008 - Sébastien Loeb made it two WRC victories from two weekends by winning the 2008 Tour de Corse this afternoon.
Loeb completed the final 26km asphalt stage without incident to bring his Citroen C4 WRC across the line with a lead of 3min24.7sec. In a faultless performance on his home rally Loeb was fastest on all but two of the 16 stages and extended his lead in the 2008 drivers’ championship to 14 points.
Loeb’s fourth consecutive victory on the Tour de Corse kept Citroen ahead of Ford in the manufacturers’ series by 23 points.
“It’s getting better and better” said Loeb at end of the final stage. “To win here in Corsica is a great moment. We were much faster all rally and that’s great for me and the team. We’ll add another two more points to our championship lead. A 14 point lead with two rallies to go looks good. So okay, we’ll see how we get on in Japan.”
As expected, on the final stage The BP Ford Abu Dhabi team manipulated the positions of the three leading Fords to slot Mikko Hirvonen into second. “I can’t celebrate it but I understand what the team is doing and I appreciate what Francois and Jari-Matti have done, but I really wish I didn’t have that puncture,” said Hirvonen. “That made things so much more difficult. We were second and we had a good speed. Okay though, here we are.”
Francois Duval deliberately checked-in early to the pre-stage control on SS16, collecting a two-minute penalty and dropping behind Hirvonen in the overall standings. “I still very happy,” said Duval. That’s two rallies with no mistakes and no punctures. It’s been a long time since I’ve driven such a good car on tarmac.”
A different strategy was employed for Jari-Matti Latvala, who was told to check in nine minutes late, collect 90sec of penalty time and drop behind Duval to fourth. “We want to do everything we can for the team,” he said. “Of course personally I’m disappointed but nobody can take away the experience and the confidence I have got here. It’ll be a completely different story on the gravel rallies which follow.”
Petter Solberg rounded off the top five in his Subaru Impreza WRC2008. The Norwegian completed the final stage two minutes slower than the leaders after collecting his second puncture of the day. “I was driving carefully, so I don’t know why it happened; I didn’t feel I hit anything. But that’s how it is. I tried hard from that start and that’s it.”
Petter’s team-mate at Subaru, Chris Atkinson was sixth. “We backed off after our puncture yesterday,” he said. “But yeah, I’m happy to get some points. We’ve done the best job we can and I’m satisfied with that.”
Seventh was Urmo Aava in his PH sport run Citroen C4 WRC. “It’s an okay result but after our problems on Friday and Saturday seventh was really all we could do,” he said. “It’s okay to get two points but I was hoping for a bit more.”
Stobart VK M-sport driver Matthew Wilson took eighth and the final drivers’ championship point: “We had a hard start to the rally, going off on stage three and struggling to get any feeling but we came back yesterday,” he said. “We built the speed up today and tried to pressure Brice Tirabassi but when he stopped that battle was over. From then on we were just driving to the split times. For us today it was all about being careful and keeping the car in the middle of the road.”
Norway’s Mads Ostberg finished the rally ninth in his Subaru Impreza while Scotsman Barry Clark was tenth in his Stobart VK M-Sport Ford Focus.
Result :
|
Pos |
Driver/Nav. |
Car |
Time |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1. |
Sebastien LOEB Daniel ELENA |
Citroën C4 |
3:42:58.0
|
|
2. |
MikkoHIRVONEN Jarmo LEHTINEN |
Ford FOCUS RS WRC |
+3:24.7
|
|
3. |
François DUVAL Patrick PIVATO |
Ford FOCUS RS WRC |
+3:31.6
|
|
4. |
Jari Matti LATVALA Miikka ANTTILA |
Ford FOCUS RS WRC |
+3:37.5
|
|
5. |
Petter SOLBERG Philip MILLS |
Subaru IMPREZA WRC |
+5:35.4
|
|
6. |
Chris ATKINSON Stéphane PREVOT |
Subaru IMPREZA WRC |
+6:10.4
|
|
7. |
Urmo AAVA Kuldar SIKK |
Citroën C4 WRC |
+7:25.2
|
|
8. |
Matthew WILSON Scott MARTIN |
Ford FOCUS RS WRC |
+9:02.2
|
|
9. |
Mads OSTBERG Ole Kristian UNNERUD |
Subaru IMPREZA WRC |
+9:13.3
|
|
10. |
Barry CLARK Paul NAGLE |
Ford FOCUS RS WRC |
+13:38.3
|
WRC Drivers Championship Standings :
| 1 | Sébastien Loeb (Citroën) |
106pts
|
| 2 | Mikko Hirvonen (Ford) |
92pts
|
| 3 | Dani Sordo (Citroën) |
59pts
|
| 4 | Chris Atkinson (Subaru) |
45pts
|
| 5 | Jari-Matti Latvala (Ford) |
42pts
|
| 6 | Petter Solberg (Subaru) |
40pts
|
Manufacturers' championship standings :
| 1 | Citroën Total World Rally Team |
169pts
|
| 2 | BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team |
146pts
|
| 3 | Subaru World Rally Team |
87pts
|
| 4 | Stobart VK M-Sport Ford Rally Team |
62pts
|
| 5 | Munchi's Ford World Rally Team |
22pts
|
| 6 | Suzuki World Rally Team |
21pts
|
[Source : WRC , Image courtesy of Citroën]
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