27.2 seconds was the difference between defending world champion Sebastien Loeb and the rest of the bunch at the FxPro Cyprus Rally as he took his third win of the season to take his career tally to an unbelievable 50 rally wins.
Loeb has been breaking records since the day he sat behind the wheels of a rally car and at Cyprus, things weren’t anything outside the ordinary. Loeb drove through the final 11km of gravel without any glitches and took the title for the Citroen Total World Rally Team. The C4 WRC was too fast for his rivals, including second placed Mikko Hirvonen for the BP-Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team.
While the champagne was being opened for Loeb, Citroen would face a shock in terms of Junior team driver Sebastien Ogier crashing out just 200m from the finish line.
Meanwhile, on the C4 WRC of Loeb and Elena, there were two new hood ornaments in the form of a delighted driver and co-driver pair. “It’s incredible!” said Loeb. “I remember when I beat the records of Carlos [Sainz] and then Colin [McRae] it wasn’t so long ago, and now we’re on 50. It’s a big number. And a nice number! It’s like a dream. I’m very happy with what I’ve achieved but I’m not finished yet. Next I’m going for 51.”
Daniel Elena said: “It feels really nice. Now the most important thing is to try and get all 12 wins this year!”
Mikko Hirvonen was the first to congratulate Loeb on his achievement by carving “50” in the mud stuck on the back of Loeb’s car. “We lost this event on Friday,” said the Finn. “We managed to take some time back today. If it was drier the result might have been different, but that’s how it is. We were faster today though, hopefully we can take that speed to Portugal.”
In third place came an understandably happy Petter Solberg in the Citroen Xsara. The former world champion became the first privateer since Daniel Carlsson, in 2006, to finish on the podium. “I was so pleased with our stage win in Norway, but this is even more amazing!” said the Norwegian as he jumped down from the roof of his car. “Everybody in the team - all the mechanics - have done an incredible job. We’ve only got 11 people in our team and they’ve all worked unbelievably hard to get us here. The build up to this rally was just as stressful as it was in Norway. I know this is an old car, and maybe Citroen would like to finish ahead, but they should be proud about how good the Xsara still is.”
Dani Sordo came in at fourth place stating that battling for third would have meant pushing the limits, something he wouldn’t want to do to beat Solberg who wasn’t in line for the Manufacturers’ title race. “I’d prefer to finish fourth and get points in the drivers and manufacturers’ rather than risk going out and taking nothing,” said the Spaniard. “Now I’m happy for Citroen. It’s been a very good weekend.”
Sebastien Ogier handed the fifth place in the race to Mathew Wilson while the Stobart VK M-Sport driver had the fastest time on the final stage, as did Jari-Matti Latvala. “I think that’s my first ‘proper’ stage win,” beamed Wilson. “I couldn’t have gone any faster in there. The plan was to go for it and it looks like the pressure got to Ogier. But what a fight it was. We showed some good speed today - okay it wasn’t always consistent - but it’s been good.”
Conrad Rautenbach was almost surprised to end up in sixth place and was another driver who benefited from the Ogier crash. “Sixth place - it’s crazy,” he said. “Earlier today we lost Novikov and now Ogier. It’s been a really difficult weekend, and very hard to get through, but we did it, and here we are. It’s unfortunate about out team-mates, but what can you do?”