Loeb leads after morning stages in Sardinia

World champion Sebastien Loeb has completed the opening four stages of Rally d’Italia Sardegna with a lead of 2.7s over title rival Mikko Hirvonen.

Loeb, driving a Citroen DS3 WRC, had feared he would struggle to make an impact on the top positions running first on the road as world championship leader.

Although he lost time on the first two stages as he battled to forge a line through the loose surface gravel, the cleaning effect was lessened on the next two stages and he moved to the top of the leaderboard by going fastest of all on stages three and four.

“I expected to lose more time in the morning,” said Loeb. “Maybe tomorrow I will be first on the road again and I will lose more time but it depends on the weather, everything is possible. The stages today have a lot of crests, there are stones everywhere and the rhythm is changing, they’re very technical stages.”

Loeb did report one scare during the morning when he briefly ran through a ditch after taking the wrong line over a crest: “Just after a crest where you had to keep left I was a bit too much right so I landed in the ditch for a little moment,” he said. “But our car is very strong so it was no problem.”

Hirvonen was quickest on stage two to snatch the lead from Petter Solberg. The Finn said he was satisfied with his morning’s work in his factory Ford Fiesta RS WRC. “I am happy to be in this position, we’ve not taken big risks and had no problems.”

Evgeny Novikov is a hugely impressive third overall in his privateer Fiesta, 11.9s off the lead. “It was a great morning for us,” said the young Russian. “The second stage was very difficult, very narrow with fast corners into slow corners. I’m not thinking about the result, I’m having fun and doing my best.”

Mads Ostberg has been embroiled in a close fight with Sebastien Ogier for fourth. The Norwegian heads Ogier by 1.0s after four stages with the French driver reporting that he will make changes to the rear of his Citroen during the remote service halt in Siamanna.

“Everything is okay but the feeling was not perfect and I preferred to take it a bit easy,” said Ogier. “The stages were tricky and we saw a lot of the drivers had problems. It’s difficult for me to get a good rhythm and I prefer to still be in the race. The rear of my car is not good in the fast places. I will make changes.”

Petter Solberg held the lead after the first stage but gave away almost 40 seconds when his Citroen’s turbo boost pipe worked loose on stage two. He holds sixth, 26.3s off first place.

Henning Solberg is seventh despite a brush with a bridge on stage three, which inflicted substantial cosmetic damage to the rear of his Fiesta and caused a brief fire.

Dani Sordo is the top MINI John Cooper Works WRC driver in eighth overall with Super 2000 World Rally Championship stars Ott Tanak and Martin Prokop ninth and 10th respectively in their Fiestas.
Kris Meeke ran as high as fourth in his MINI WRC but went off the road on stage three after reporting a mechanical fault. The Briton’s car is understood to have lost a wheel on impact although he expects to restart under SupeRally regulations on day two.

Jari-Matti Latvala will also need SupeRally to restart on Saturday after he damaged his suspension and steering hitting a wall on the first stage. He attempted to continue through stage two but wishbone and steering arm failure forced him out after six kilometres.

Jan Cerny tops the FIA WRC Academy standings after four stages closely followed by Fredrik Ahlin.