Loeb Wins 8th Straight Rally Germany

Sebastien Loeb became the first driver in the history of the World Rally Championship to win the same WRC event for no less than 8 times. Ever since Rally Germany has opened its gates for the WRC field, there was no other driver to win it but the 6-time world champion.

Loeb built a comfortable lead at the end of Day 1 and further extended it through the Saturday running, putting more than 35 seconds between him and his Citroen teammate Dani Sordo. Loeb continued to attack on Sunday’s 5 stages and recorded two more personal wins to eventually end the 2010 Rally Germany in 1st place, more than 51 seconds in front of Sordo.

"A very good victory for me again - the eighth one in a row. It's incredible, I really have a good feeling on this rally. I wouldn't like to be beaten here, and this time it's all okay again," said Loeb, according to Autosport.

Sordo finally scored a boosting result this season on asphalt, ending the rally one minute and 22 second ahead of Citroen Junior’s Sebastien Ogier. The Frenchman had some difficulties during Day 1 – having lost some time due to an issue to his Citroen C4’s anti-stall system – but eventually managed to complete Citroen’s 1-2-3.

Ford’s Jari-Matti Latvala ended Rally Germany in 4th place, proving once again that he is the team’s leading driver this season. His teammate Mikko Hirvonen hit trouble several times in Germany, suffering from transmission problems on Saturday and then breaking his gearbox on Sunday.

That enabled Citroen’s privateer Petter Solberg to come in 5th place, despite the Norwegian’s heavy problems on Friday, when he did most of his running with two damaged tires. Returning to the scene where he had one of the major accidents of his career, Solberg won the Panzerplatte stage on Saturday and continued to fight until finishing ahead of Stobart’s Matthew Wilson.

The same Panzerplatte stage witnessed a heavy accident when WRC returnee Francois Duval crashed heavily his Ford Focus WRC, while Jari-Matti Latvala spun off to lose 3rd place to Ogier.

Wilson fought until the last second against Kimi Raikkonen for 6th place, having actually lost that place to the Finn 2 stages before the end. He recovered though in the last couple of stages and finished ahead of the Citroen Junior racer, while Kimi managed to finish inside the points yet another time this season.

Khalid Al Qassimi (Ford) finished in 8th place overall, ahead of privateer Mark Van Eldik (Subaru Impreza) and Patrick Sandell (Skoda Fabia).