Loeb Wins Rally Mexico

Sebastian Loeb did not take long to respond to his Ford rivals in the 2011 World Rally Championship, clinching his first win of the new season and fifth of his career in Mexico. The Frenchman fought hard for the win against Citroen teammate Sebastien Ogier until the early stages of Day 3, when the latter crashed out to give the reigning world champion the win on a silver platter.

Loeb and Ogier were practically unbeatable in the first two days on the gravely Mexican roads, with the latter dominating the field throughout Day 1 and the former getting ahead in Day 2.

SS15 proved an unlucky one for Loeb late on Saturday however, as the Frenchman experienced some issues with his Citroen DS3 WRC's gearbox that made him run late for the stage start. This meant that his 30-second advantage to Ogier turned into a 20-second deficit due to the 50-second penalty incurred by the rally officials.

However, disaster was still ahead for Ogier, who began the Sunday action in the worse manner possible. The rally leader at the time lost control of his DS3 WRC in the first stage of Day 3 and was unable to resume action, with his car being too severely damaged.

Under the circumstances, Loeb went on to clinch an easy win, as Ford’s duo Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala ended the rally 1:28 and 2:23 seconds behind, respectively.

“That was a very hard weekend, a terrible fight with Ogier until today. He was really, really pushing hard. I think we've done nearly a perfect weekend, some small troubles but not many for a new car. I'm satisfied with the performance - the DS3 is very fast,” said an enthused Loeb, who celebrated his 63rd WRC win on Sunday.

Although Hirvonen had to settle for the runner-up spot – a lucky one as it was – the Finn walked away with the bonus points from getting to top the field in the rally’s power stage on Sunday.

Petter Solberg finished on a remarkable 4th place overall, if we are to take into account his 7-minute loss of time on Friday, caused by an electrical issue with his DS3 WRC. He was followed by Stobart Ford’s duo Mads Ostberg and Henning Solberg, both having suffered some problems during their Friday and Saturday running.

Completing the Top 10 were Barwa Ford’s Nasser Al-Attiyah, Czech Ford’s Martin Prokop, Red Bull Skoda’s Juho Hanninen and Munchi’s Federico Villagra. The Argentine took advantage of Ken Block’s 3 retirements this weekend (yes, you're reading it right, two were caused by electrical issues and the third was the result of an accident) to eventually score the last point in play.

Despite his 3 retirements, Block was still in contention for a Top 10 position, only for another electrical glitch with two stages to go to deprive him of a well deserved championship point. He eventually finished the rally in 13th place.