Loeb victorious in Mexico

Sebastien Loeb took his first victory of the season in the World Rally Championship in Mexico. With this triumph the French rally driver also moved into top spot of the WRC standings after Finalnd’s Mikko Hirvonen, winner in Sweden, wasn’t able to do better than fourth place.

In Mexico, Loeb ended the first day in third position, but an outstanding second day performance saw him grant a 55 seconds lead, which gave him enough margin to control his opponents in the rally’s final day.

After the win Loeb seemed relieved with the result in Mexico. "Finally a victory and back in the lead of the championship," he said. "It was important after Sweden to win here. It's only the start of the championship but I'm really happy. We had a really good drive yesterday. Now it's looking good."

The other two spots in the podium also went to Citroën drivers. Petter Solberg, from Citroën Total World Rally Team, and Sebastien Ogier, from Citroën Junior Team fought until the last superspecial for second place. Solberg clinched the runner-up spot by just 1.1 seconds.

As for the winner of the first rally of the season, Finland’s Hirvonen and team Ford had a disappointing race in Mexico. Hirvonen seemed to lack the pace throughout the hole weekend and only team orders saw him climb up to fourth place, ahead of his team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala.

"It was a very difficult weekend for the whole team," Hirvonen admitted. "We never really had the speed. Lots of small mistakes on my side as well. In the end I'm glad we got the points we could and I just want to leave it behind and go on to the next rally."

As for former F1 pilot Kimi Raikkonen, the Finn had another disappointing performance bending a steering arm on the opening stage, stopping for half an hour with a fuel system fault on SS2. He would finally crash five stages later.

The next stop of the WRC will be the Jordan Rally on the first days of April (1-3).