Rally – Loeb Storms to Win and 7th Title

Rally France has ended and was a bit all to predictable as Sebastien Loeb has taken Rally France and his seventh title in as many years. The rally itself was pretty cut and dry as nobody has been able to touch Loeb on the tarmac surface for sometime now. Even the rainy and muddy conditions could not slow down the Citroen ace from achieving what we all knew was eventually going to happen.

Notable events from Day 2 that was not covered on the site include Kimi Raikkonen crashing as usual, Ken Block being delayed in the service park in which he was eventually penalized, Sebastien Ogier hitting a tree, and Ford trying to figure out where it all went wrong. There…now on to the third leg.

The third day continued to see the muddy conditions that had been present all day long. Jari-Matti Latvala and Petter Solberg would battle for the final podium position given Ogier’s careless incident the day prior. Sebastian Loeb would coast rather easily to a 35.7sec victory over Citroen teammate Dani Sordo. The final podium position would go to Petter Solberg as he just beats out Jari-Matti who had a brilliant run in France given the lack of pace the Focus has on the surface. Malcolm Wilson was quick to praise JML for a fantastic run and said Ford had made some changes to the engine and suspension to try and improve the performance. More importantly, JML has secured another rally where he finished above teammate and proclaimed team number one Mikko Hirvonen. I think we will see some changes at Ford next year for sure.

American Ken Block would have a tough weekend but would finish in P12. After a spin on day, the Gymkhana star would suffer from transmission issues and be penalized in the service park. All of that teamed with the nasty conditions would see him notch a finish at least, unfortunately he would come up empty handed on the points front. He would however get the Abu Dhabi Spirit of the Rally award given to the team that persisted under any circumstance. A big congratulations to Ken and Alex on a weekend done well.

So that for all intensive purposes is the end of the 2010 season. We still have two rallies remaining in the Spain and the UK. Now that Citroen has the manufacturers title and Loeb has the drivers title, we may see the team pull out all of the stops and try for a Dani Sordo win on home soil. That would cap off a brilliant finish to the C4’s service life.

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