Loeb wins Rally of Turkey!

Ahead of Solberg and Hirvonen

By Franck Drui

18 April 2010 - 14:19
Loeb wins Rally of Turkey!

Sebastien Loeb won Rally of Turkey by nearly a minute to extend his lead of the World Rally Championship to 40 points over privateer Citroen driver Petter Solberg, who finished second.

Citroen now has a 15-point lead over Ford in the manufacturers’ rankings. “It was good to be able to fight from the front and not have to think about the tactics,” said Loeb. “It was not easy because I really had to push from the start.”

Solberg claimed his third consecutive podium to move up to the championship runner-up spot, making good on his promise to be a genuine title contender in 2010.

The Norwegian led the event after the opening stage on Friday and remained at the sharp end of the field right to the finish.

“This result is so special because we don’t have the budget of the top teams but we proved we could fight,” said Solberg. “We tried for the win but in the end it was not possible, although I am very, very happy.”

The first two of today’s six stages were cancelled after overnight rain made them too muddy to use. On the remaining stage of the morning loop Mikko Hirvonen came to grief when he slid wide into a rock and subsequently picked up a puncture.

The Finn dropped to fourth after losing more time when his Ford Focus filled with dust after the flailing tyre tore a hole in the left-rear wheel arch.

He eventually finished third but only after Dani Sordo, Loeb’s Citroen team-mate, hit trouble. “We got there in the end,” he concluded. “I’m a little bit disappointed because right up to this morning we had a chance to win, but it wasn’t a complete disaster. It was actually a very tough rally, which you can see from the number of people having problems.”

One of them was Sordo. The Spaniard lost a near-certain podium place when he slid off on a very muddy corner 14 kilometres into SS21 and broke his front suspension. The incident occurred in a very narrow place, which meant that a number of cars clattered into Sordo’s stranded C4 WRC as they tried to get past.

This promoted Hirvonen to third and the Citroen Junior Team’s Sebastien Ogier to fourth. “It was less than we deserved,” concluded Ogier, who had led the event in style from SS3 until he picked up a puncture on Saturday afternoon that cost him more than three minutes.

The other key beneficiary of Sordo’s retirement was the 2007 Formula One World Champion Kimi Raikkonen, who put in a solid performance setting top 10 times on every stage to finish fifth overall: his best result in a World Rally Car.

“The feeling is coming now,” said Raikkonen. “We weren’t pushing too hard but we were still able to set times that were not so bad.”

The Pirelli Star Driver scheme got off to a fraught start in Turkey, with only one car making it to the first service on Friday. Ott Tanak emerged as the class of the field, but he rolled out of a brilliant ninth place overall on the final morning. New Zealander Hayden Paddon was consequently the top finisher.

Final standings after SS23

Pos.DriverVarTime
01 Sébastien LOEB Citroën C4 WRC 3h01m38.7s
02 Petter SOLBERG Citroën C4 WRC +54.5s
03 Mikko HIRVONEN Ford Focus WRC +1m43.4s
04 Sébastien OGIER Citroën C4 WRC +3m46.0s
05 Kimi RAIKKÖNEN Citroën C4 WRC +6m44.3s
06 Federico VILLAGRA Ford Focus WRC +7m56.7s
07 Matthew WILSON Ford Focus WRC +8m29.8s
08 Jari Matti LATVALA Ford Focus WRC +19m44.2s
09 Dennis KUIPERS Ford Fiesta S2000 +23m22.2s
10 Aaron BURKART Suzuki Swift S1600 +27m04.7s
11 Alessandro BROCCOLI Renault Clio R3 +30m58.4s
12 Burcu ÇETINKAYA Peugeot 207 S2000 +32m33.8s
13 Burak ÇUKUROVA Peugeot 207 S2000 +32m33.8s
14 Serhat ÖZTEMIR Mitsubishi Lancer Gr N +33m20.0s
15 Kevin ABBRING Renault Clio R3 +36m48.4s

WRC

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