After taking five stage wins and leading for the entire rally, Sebastian Loeb has tied up his and navigator Daniel Elena's 58th win with victory on the 2010 Rally Bulgaria. Loeb has won the last 15 pure tarmac rallies and proved that he is still the No.1 tarmac driver in the WRC over Friday's 118 Kms, taking all the stage wins of the day.
At the end of the day, Loeb lead team-mate Dani Sordo by 28.1 secs over the mixed Bulgarian stages. Petter Solberg held on to third, although 38 secs off the lead.
Loeb said: “The feeling for me has been very good today. There was some gravel in some of the corners this afternoon, but nothing too bad. I tried to drive the same as this morning and the times were close [to what he set through the morning]. But, there is still a long way to go in this event, and the weather could make it difficult tomorrow. I will try to be confident again tomorrow, but today has been perfect for me and the car.”
Citroen Junior Team drivers Sebastian Ogier and Kimi Raikkonen both make mistakes on the third and fourth tests respectively. Ogier ended up in a ditch after understeering but only managed to get back on the road after losing just under a minute.
“It took some time for me to get back on the road. It’s quite frustrating, but that can be the rally some times.” said Ogier
Raikkonen fared much worse, braking on some sand and sliding into a ditch. The car rolled only once but was stuck too far down the bank to be able to reverse back onto the stage. Raikkonen was running in fourth after setting some really competitive stage times, and was only fourteen seconds behind Petter Solberg before his off.
Top of the struggling Fords, Mikko Hirvonen wasn't happy with his pacenotes on the first leg, but was the fastest Ford in fourth, with team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala fifth. P-G Andersson seventh is on his Ford debut with Stobart Ford team-mate Matthew Wilson sitting ninth. Henning Solberg holds tenth and leads Group N4 in his debut in the Fiesta S2000.
“This hasn’t been a good day. I wasn’t so confident in the pace notes this morning, sometimes they were too fast and then in some corners too slow. Like this morning, when the road was dirty or technical, I felt we were okay and the pace was good, but in the fast sections we were not really there. We made some changes at lunchtime and this helped the car, it was definitely better this afternoon.” commented Hirvonen.
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