His Swedish disaster last month was forgotten when Sebastien Loeb came through to win the Corona Rally Mexico for the third year running in a Citroen, but once again victory on this high altitude rally was no easy walkover. This year Loeb played a cautious game when Ford driver Jari-Matti Latvala stormed into an early lead before falling back with turbocharger troubles. Latvala's teammate Mikko Hirvonen, initially unhappily running first car on the stages, struggled through to fourth place but maintained his lead in the World Drivers' championship. Hirvonen's miseries were increased by punctures despite a remarkable display of reliability by the Pirelli control tyres, which were used on gravel roads for the first time. Loeb meanwhile had overcome an extraordinary, and never explained, pre-event confusion when the team twice changed engines before the start of the event. And he escaped the penalty.

Classic Mexican warm and dry conditions provided the usual high altitude demands. These cost both the Suzuki SX4 team cars retirement through engine failure, but favoured the short stroke Subaru cars and provided Chris Atkinson with second place, his best ever World rally result.

The remarkably compact Leon-based rally, provided competitors with a most attractively high proportion of competitive distance. While the total stage distance was the normal FIA regulated length, the total distance was the shortest in the history of the World series. Notwithstanding that all six official world championship teams were present, there was a small overall entry. This was the opening round of the 2008 Junior championship, (the series now officially called "world" again, because the series embraces events in three continents) though only nine of the registered entrants elected to compete on this event.

The speed of Latvala in the first part of the rally despite running second car on the road, was a big surprise. World Champion Sebastien Loeb paid the 22 year old the greatest compliment by saying that he thought he would have a quieter life now that Marcus Gronholm had retired from the sport - and was wrong! Firstly it was Atkinson then Sebastien Loeb who kept up the pressure, but the Finn kept the lead through until the end of the day. On the Saturday afternoon things went wrong for Latvala, when a high pressure turbocharger pipe leaked and deprived the engine of turbo pressure. Latvala lost two minutes and dropped to third, behind Loeb and Atkinson, which he kept till the end of the event.

With their short stroke boxer layout engines the normally troublesome Subarus always do unusually well on this event. Petter Solberg was lying in fourth place overnight, but had transmission troubles and dropped out for the rest of Saturday. He returned on the Sunday to take one championship point for the Subaru team. This gave Hirvonen a chance to pull up to fourth, but the Finn then had a couple of punctures allowing Henning Solberg up one place. The Norwegian had two punctures on the final day and the positions were reversed but Henning had a very rare achievement of gaining manufacturer championship points for a second team in one year! Very fast in the opening stages was Gigi Galli but he went off the road and damaged the roll cage which for safety reasons prevented him from continuing. A very early casualty was Loeb's teammate Dani Sordo who went off the road on the first stage but who returned in the unsuccessful hope of gaining a championship points for his team. A lonely sixth place went to Matthew Wilson who was very badly delayed driving in the dust of Toni Gardemeister.

The nine entrants in the Junior championship series who ventured to Mexico had a dramatic time. It was only the second time Juniors had been at the event (2005). Martin Prokop was Junior favourite but crashed on the first stage and did a lot of damage, but continued. Then twice he lost more time, each occasion because of a transmission problem, but he struggled on to finish in the points in seventh place. The 24 year old driver who took the lead, Sebastien Ogier, is completely unknown outside his native France. Another favoured driver arriving with high hopes was the 2006 Junior chamion Patrik Sandell, whose Renault Clio S1600 was being run by a different team – the Serbian-based Interspeed team, but Sandell's rally was fraught. For most of Day 1 he had no brakes, dropping from second behind Ogier. He tried to make up for the delays but had punctures and eventually finished fifth. Driving steadily behind the leading Citroen were the Suzukis of the Estonian Jaan Molder and the Polish driver Michal Kosciuszko. Molder had traction troubles and Kosciuszko suffered power loss on the higher altitude stage. Eventually they respectively finished second and third in the category. Aaron Burkart finished fourth after arriving at the end of one stage with his side door dragging on the ground and the occupants plastered with dust. Irish driver Shaun Gallagher finished sixth but felt ill for the whole event, struggling in the heat and sandy roads to keep going. The Rookie driver Francesco Fanari stopped one stage before the finish with driveshaft failure in a Citroen C2-R2 but was able to hobble to the finish in one-wheel drive mode, claiming maximum points in the Rookie challenge.

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