Win in Germany keeps Loeb in the title hunt

Citroen’s World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb maintained his stranglehold on the German WRC round at the weekend as the Frenchman took his sixth successive Rallye Deutschland victory to close the gap on championship leader Marcus Gronholm.

With an unbeaten record of victories at Rally Germany since it became a WRC round in 2002, Loeb’s C4 had been fending off the second-placed Ford of Marcus Gronholm going into the final day, but the Finn went off the road on the final day, and finished fourth.

Loeb and co-driver, Daniel Elena, led the rally almost from start to finish and, by the end of day two, the pair had built up such a lead that they were able to take it easy to the finish.

Asphalt has always been a surface on which Loeb and the Citroen C4 excel, ensuring that they were firm favourites for victory in Germany.

"Before the start," said Loeb, "we knew we had to start pulling back points if we wanted to stay in the title chase. I have always felt comfortable in Germany, so this was the ideal place to do that. At the same time, I didn’t want to disappoint all my supporters who come here to see us every year. We were under quite a lot of pressure but we were able to cope with it thanks to the help of everyone at Citroen Sport."

The victory brings Loeb’s total WRC successes to 33, all of them gained since his first victory on Rallye Deutschland in 2002. "It's always nice to win this event,” said Loeb. “It is based close to my home region of Alsace and it's the event that gave me my first WRC win in 2002, so it is something very special.”

With Loeb now just eight points behind Gronholm in the title fight, the next event, Rally New Zealand, takes place on from 31 August-2 September.

Final leaderboard on 6th Rally Deutschland

1. S. Loeb/D. Elena (Citroen C4) 3 h 27 min 27,5s
2. F. Duval/P. Pivato (Citroen Xsara) + 20,3 s
3. M. Hirvonen/J. Lehtinen (Ford Focus) + 1 min 19,1 s
4. M. Grönholm/T. Rautiainen (Ford Focus) + 1 min 36,5 s
5. J. Kopecký/F. Schovánek (Skoda Fabia) + 3 min 07,1 s
6. P. Solberg/P. Mills (Subaru Impreza) + 3 min 14,7 s
7. T. Gardemeister/J. Honkanen (Citroen Xsara) + 3 min 37,5 s
8. JM. Latvala/M. Anttila (Ford Focus) + 5 min 29,3 s
9. M. Wilson/M. Orr (Ford Focus) + 11 min 04,2 s
10. G. Wilks/P. Pugh (Ford Focus) + 19 min 47,8 s