Day 2 – Loeb, Sordo and Citroen confirm!

Sébastien Loeb confirmed his dominance during the second day of the Monte Carlo Rally, the opening round of the 2008 WRC season.

The four-time French world champion, driving a Citroën C4 WRC, managed to set his pace against his competitors in very changing conditions.

The 6 special stages of the day were won 5 times by the Alsatian, while Sordo, confirming the domination of Citroën, won SS4.

Doubt nevertheless set in a few hours before the end of the day as Sordo experienced a differential problem during the last stage, SS8. The Spanish driver then lost 35 seconds in a single stage, giving Loeb a large margin and leaving Hirvonen with the hope of a silver medal.

The Ford driver is now 26 seconds behind the Citroën and remains optimistic: “I really want to put pressure on them in the future,” he stated after ES5.

The Ford team was generally in better shape than last time, although their Saudi Arabian driver, Al Qassimi, experienced a very complicated SS6 after hitting a wall. He lost 10 minutes and is no longer in the top 20.

The other Ford drivers, on the contrary, improved their positions with Jari-Matti Latvala, who, after his incident on the first day, moved up to 9th place, ahead of Henning Solberg, now in the top 10. François Duval, in the Stobart Focus, is still battling for 4th place as he is in 5th place and only 3 seconds behind Chris Atkinson, the leading Subaru driver.

His teammate, Peter Solberg, ranks 6th, just ahead of another Stobart, that of Gigi Galli.

The only regional in the rally top 10, just like last year, is Jean-Marie Cuoq with a very good eighth time but very close to 7th place. The double French champion has shown very good times.

Frédéric Romeyer, another local, is 13th with his 206.

Tomorrow, the drivers continue their first weekend of the season in Ardèche.

Monte-Carlo Rally – Day 2 – Top 10