Written by:
SPEED Staff
SPEEDtv.com
04/26/2009
Buenos Aires, (ARG)
Citroen C4 driver Sebastien Loeb has won Rally Argentina - and taken his fifth successive victory on the South American WRC classic.
The five time world rally champion headed a Citroen Total team one-two finish, completing the three day event 1min 13.1 seconds ahead of his Spanish team-mate Dani Sordo.
Loeb has simply owned the 2009 WRC championship, claiming his latest win today in Argentina. (LAT)
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Today’s win was the 52nd in Loeb’s record breaking WRC career, his fifth from five events this season, and puts the Frenchman in a commanding lead of this year’s drivers’ championship, with a perfect maximum score of 50 points.
Loeb took the rally lead from Sordo on Saturday’s second stage [SS12] and held it until the end. His team-mate moved into the runner-up spot on SS15, when the pair’s only real challenger, Ford driver Mikko Hirvonen, retired with an overheated engine.
“It really couldn’t have gone much better for us,” said Loeb at the end of the Cordoba Super Special. “It’s been a great rally. The stages are exciting to drive and we enjoyed a good fight with Mikko until Saturday afternoon. Okay, after he retired it got a bit less exciting but I still enjoyed my driving here.”
Throughout the rally Dani Sordo played the perfect support role to Loeb. The Spaniard took the lead on Friday night and tackled Saturday’s stages first - helping to sweep a cleaner line for Loeb behind. “The car has been perfect and I’m happy to have done a good job this weekend,” he said. “It’s been a good performance for Citroen in the manufacturers’ championship and for me too in the drivers.’”
Sordo moved up to second place in the drivers’ standings on 31 points - one ahead of Mikko Hirvonen who drops to third.
Following the dramatic last day retirements of Jari-Matti Latvala and Petter Solberg, a solid drive from Henning Solberg netted the Stobart VK M-Sport Ford driver third place - matching the Norwegian’s best result on a WRC rally. “I’ve worked very hard all weekend to get this result,” he said. “I broke my gravel spec gearbox on Thursday so I’ve had to go tougher than ever to go fast here.” Henning lies fourth in the championship on a total of 20 points.
A delighted Federico Villagra finished fourth, to score his best ever WRC finish on his home rally. The Munchi’s Ford team driver, who lives in Villa Carlos Paz, scored his previous best - sixth - on this event in 2008. “I’m very happy and it’s a great feeling to get this result in front of my home crowd,” said Villagra. “It’s been a very interesting rally and a good fight with Matthew [Wilson] today. We really enjoyed it!”
Briton Matthew Wilson rounded off the top five in his Stobart VK M-Sport Ford Focus, but felt without the set-up problems that slowed him on Saturday he could have done better. “I’m a little bit frustrated because I think we could have got fourth,” he said. “Fifth is a good result though, and had I not thrown away the same position in Portugal it would have been my third in a row!”
Jari-Matti Latvala finished sixth after his car’s earlier fuel pressure problem seemingly cured itself. “It’s running fine now - it must have been an electrical failure,” said the Ford driver.
Citroen Junior team driver Sebastien Ogier looked all but certain to take two championship points for finishing seventh, but ended up losing two places when his car’s starter motor broke at the start of the Super Special. The Frenchman re-started today as a SupeRally entry after retiring on Saturday with a broken damper. “Apart from the starter motor today had been okay for us, we’ve done some good times,” he said.
Subaru Group N drivers Nasser Al Attiyah and Juan Marchetto finished seventh and eighth respectively to take the final drivers’ championship points.
