Sebastien Loeb’s championship lead is now up to 51 points over Sebastien Ogier, after the six-time World Champion cruised to victory with what he called “a Sunday drive” on the final day of Rally Bulgaria.
Citroen now has a 47-point lead over Ford in the manufacturers’ standings with six rounds remaining.
The final day consisted of just four stages and 94 competitive kilometres, under the hottest conditions seen yet on the rally.
Loeb started the day with a 40-second lead and then controlled his pace to the finish, ending the rally with a 29.5 second advantage over his team-mate Dani Sordo.
The Spaniard, however, had a fight on his hands as Petter Solberg’s private Citroen was just five seconds behind him at the start of the day. Solberg and his new co-driver Chris Patterson were determined to overhaul the Spaniard, but in the end they just missed out on the runner-up spot.
Nonetheless, the Norwegian was extremely happy with a podium. “When we started the rally, both myself and Chris were quite nervous,” he said. “But I have to say he did an excellent job.”
Sebastien Ogier was a lonely fourth, while the factory Fords of Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti had resigned themselves to fifth and sixth almost from the first day.
“We have to keep working hard to improve,” concluded Hirvonen. “We just tested a few things for future rallies today. I think we learned something that will help on the remaining asphalt rallies.”
Stobart-Ford’s new recruit P-G Andersson was a trouble-free seventh, having kept out of trouble as asked, while former Grand Prix champion Kimi Raikkonen also had an eye on the future. The Finn just missed out on finishing in the top 10 after getting stuck on a bank for more than half a minute on the final stage of the rally.