Sébastien Loeb won the Rally of Turkey by nearly a minute to extend his lead of the World Rally Championship to 40 points over privateer Citroën driver Petter Solberg, who finished second.
The Red Bull-backed Citroën team now have 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.
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 first two of Sunday’s six stages were cancelled after overnight rain made them too muddy to use. On the remaining stage of the morning loop, Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen came to grief when he slid wide into a rock and subsequently picked up a puncture. The Finn dropped to fourth but fought back to third after Dani Sordo, Loeb’s Citroen team-mate, hit trouble.
'The feeling is coming now' – Kimi Räikkönen
Sordo lost a near-certain podium place when he slid off on a very muddy corner 14km 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 as they tried to get past.
This promoted Hirvonen to third and the Citroen Junior Team’s Sébastien Ogier to fourth after the young French driver had led for much of the event until he picked up a puncture on Saturday afternoon.
The other key beneficiary of Sordo’s retirement was the 2007 Formula One World Champion Kimi Räikkönen, who put in a solid performance and top-10 times on every stage to finish fifth overall, his best result in a WRC car.
“The feeling is coming now,” Räikkönen commented. “We weren’t pushing too hard, but we were still able to set times that were not so bad.”
Catch up on the other stories from the rally at wrc.com.
WRC standings
Sébastien Loeb (Citroën) – 93pts
Petter Solberg (Citroën) – 53pts
Mikko Hirvonen (Ford) – 52pts
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