Rivals cannot match Loeb
Sebastien Loeb is cruising towards his 10th win of the season after dominating the first day of Rally Catalunya.
The world champion was once again the class of the field, with none of his rivals able to come close.
Former world champion Petter Solberg proved the point when he made an uncharacteristic mistake on stage six, pushing too hard to match Loeb’s pace and crashing out.
Solberg accepted the blame for his accident, and said: “I was coming up to a left-hand corner just over a crest about three kilometres from the end of the stage, but I braked a little late and went off the road.
“The car hit a bank on the right-hand side which broke a link bolt to the track control arm on the front-right corner so we didn’t have any steering and couldn’t go on any further. We’re going to get it fixed now and will be back again tomorrow.”
Like the rest of Loeb’s rivals, Solberg had made little impression on the Frenchman’s advantage on another day of domination from the Citroen driver.
He believes his tyre choice this morning laid the foundations for the impressive performance, although the 31-year-old revealed how close he came to a rally-ending accident.
“I’m pleased with our tyre choice because it was quite difficult this morning - even tricky,” he said.
“We had a bit of a hot moment on stage two. The sump guard hit the ground in a right-left corner and as we were going around 200kph, we landed in the grass on the side.”
Loeb won five stages, with Ford’s Daniel Sola winning the other one, to establish a commanding 53.3-second lead over Citroen team-mate Francois Duval.
The young Belgian, fresh from incurring the wrath of team boss Guy Frequelin after crashing out a week ago in Corsica, put in a measured performance to ease Citroen closer to the manufacturers’ championship.
They need just six points this weekend but are on course to complete the triumph in style with a one-two. Duval leads Peugeot’s Marcus Gronholm by 18.4secs after reclaiming second spot on the final stage of the day.
The Ford duo of Toni Gardemeister and Roman Kresta are running fourth and sixth respectively, with Mitsubishi’s Gianluigi Galli in fifth. Mikko Hirvonen is seventh in his private Ford and Harri Rovanpera, in the other Mitsubishi, completes the top eight.
In the junior championship, Daniel Sordo is on course to win the title despite heavy pressure from Guy Wilks and Marco Baldacci.
The Citroen driver needs just two points to be certain of the crown but he faces a fight for victory in Spain. He leads Wilks and Baldacci, who were tied for second after five stages, by 9.4secs. Kris Meeke is down in eighth after problems on stage one.
