Sweden Rally - Loeb out, Latvala leads

Eurosport - Fri, 08 Feb 17:02:00 2008

Sebastien Loeb's hopes of a Swedish Rally victory were ended as he rolled his car out of the event on the opening morning, leaving the Fords of Jari-Matti Latvala and Mikko Hirvonen with a comfortable advantage.

The four-time world champion had been running third in his Citroen, a little over 12 seconds off the lead, when he hit a snow bank on stage four and crashed heavily.

Loeb lost over three minutes, dropping to 23rd place as he headed to the remote service point.

"We came up to a left-hander and I went a bit with my side wheel in a snowbank. It pulled the car in sideways and the car rolled one time," said the 33-year-old Frenchman at the time. "Now we have no clutch either.

"We'll try to see if we can get it fixed in service. It's only remote service, so I'm concerned that without all my crew, it may not be fixed."

Loeb's pessimism was well-placed. Citroen failed to fix the car and he was forced to retire.
Citroen said that they will re-start Loeb under SupeRally rules on day two, albeit with a 25-minute penalty.

22-year-old Latvala was a sensation during the morning stages, going quickest on all three to open up a 23 second lead over team-mate Hirvonen.

Latvala, who failed to score a point at the season-opening Monte Carlo Rally, was clearly benefiting from running only tenth on the road.

This enabled him to pass through the morning loop of stages after the slippery top layer of snow had been removed by the earlier runners such as Loeb.

After stage four, Latvala said: "That was a hard one. Compared to the other stages, there was still a lot of snow there, and I had a lot of big moments.

"It was quite a maximum attack though. There were a few places where I was a bit careful, but it's all okay."

Hirvonen, running second on the road behind Loeb, trailed his team-mate Latvala by just over five seconds until the younger of the two Finns took a huge 17 seconds out of him on SS4.

As if the morning had not gone well enough for Ford anyway, they had double the reason to smile as Stobart duo Henning Solberg and Gigi Galli completed the top four.

Fifth is Petter Solberg, who led after the previous day's superspecial stage. The Norwegian is a minute off the lead in his Subaru.

A sensational sixth is Finn Toni Gardemeister, despite a morning of mechanical maladies that left his Suzuki clutchless, meaning that he had to keep his car rolling through the time controls.
Britain's Matthew Wilson, driving the third of the Stobart Fords, ended the morning in seventh, despite an intercom problem that forced him and co-driver Scott Martin to change helmets on SS3, while Mads Ostberg completed the points-paying positions.

The Norwegian Subaru privateer had been the star of the second stage, tearing through in the third quickest time to go fourth overall. But a "stupid" spin on the very next one cost him half a minute as he tried to get his car pointing in the right direction.

Andreas Mikklesen lies ninth in his M-Sport Ford while Finn Jari Ketomaa surprisingly completes the top ten in his Group N-spec Subaru.

It was a bad morning for Suzuki's Swedish driver Per-Gunnar Andersson. Lying seventh, he stopped with an as-yet undiagnosed mechanical problem on stage four, putting him out.
A Suzuki spokesperson told eurosport.yahoo.com that the car would be taken back to Karlstad with the aim of re-starting Andersson on day two under SupeRally rules.

Things were equally bad for Chris Atkinson. The Subaru driver crashed into a ditch on stage three and lost 15 minutes as spectators helped him get the car back on the road.

"I'm really not sure what happened," said Atkinson. "It wasn't a quick bit, just a medium-speed section. I was not pushing too hard, and I just lost it."

Atkinson now lies 58th. That puts him below Dani Sordo, who began the event with a five-minute penalty for an engine chance since the Monte Carlo Rally.

The Spaniard set top-ten times all morning and climbed from 61st to 40th in his Citroen.