Sebastien 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Petter's team-mate at Subaru, Chris Atkinson was sixth. Seventh was Urmo Aava in his PH sport run Citroen C4 WRC. Stobart VK M-sport driver Matthew Wilson took eighth and the final drivers' championship point. Martin Prokop won the Junior World Rally Championship battle in Corsica today, driving his Citroen C4 S1600 to a second consecutive J-WRC victory and his third of the year. But while another win moved the Czech Republic driver third in the championship's final standings, his achievement was overshadowed by that of Frenchman Sebastien Ogier who brought his identical car to the finish second and was crowned 2008 Junior champion. Classification : 1. Loeb-Elena (Citroen C4 WRC) in 3.42'58"0 2. Hirvonen-Lehtinen (Ford Focus WRC 07) + 3'24"7 3. Duval-Pivato (Ford Focus WRC 07) + 3'31"6 4. Latvala-Anttila (Ford Focus WRC 07) + 3'37"5 5. Solberg-Mills (Subaru Impreza WRC 08) + 5'35"4 6. Atkinson-Prévot (Subaru Impreza WRC 08) + 6'10"4 7. Aava-Sikk (Citroen C4 WRC) + 7'25"2 8. Tirabassi-Gordon (Ford Focus WRC) + 9'02"2 Etc. Provisional championship classification : 1. Loeb points 106, 2. Hirvonen 92, 3. Sordo 59, 4. Atkinson 45, 5. Latvala 42, 6. P. Solberg 40, 7. H. Solberg 22, 8. Duval 22, 9. Galli 17, 10. Wilson 13, etc. Photos: Citroën Sport
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