Loeb Wins Rally Spain, Citroen Grabs 1-2

Sebastien Loeb got exactly what he wanted this weekend: a perfect 1-2 finish in Rally Spain that would get him within one point of his title rival Mikko Hirvonen with only one round to go. The Frenchman started the Catalonian event trailing his teammate Dani Sordo for the win, but the Spaniard performed his duty as a teammate to let Loeb pass him for the lead in the last part of the rally.

Ford's Mikko Hirvonen resigned himself after more than one day of action on the roads of Catalonia, deciding to limit the point-loss in the overall classification to only 4 points. The Finn therefore didn't risk a thing in the final 2 days of the rally and came home in 3rd place, with a comfortable margin of 4th place Petter Solberg.

"This one was quite tough because Dani was pushing hard at the start. We tried to fight, but we knew we had to not make any mistakes fighting together because it was so important to finish," said Loeb, who also didn't forget to thank his teammate for his help this weekend.

"Before this rally we knew we need to score four more than Mikko and I know we need Dani to help and he has done the perfect rally. He accepted not to fight for the win right until the end. He has given his own rally and that must be difficult to accept. So, thank you Dani. I hope we can do something nice on the next rally," added the Frenchman.

With only one point of a lead and one round remaining in the season - Raly GB - Hirvonen did not look so disappointed for the result in Spain, but rather optimistic for the season finale.

"Now it's all down to GB, so that's going to be some rally. I'm really looking forward to that fight. It's going to be a really fantastic weekend," added the Ford driver.

Fifth overall was Citroen Junior's Sebastien Ogier, who got past his brake problems on Friday to overtake Ford's second driver Jari-Matti Latvala. The last point scoring positions went to Stobart Ford's Matthew Wilson and Munchi's Ford's Federico Villagra.