•The frenchman claims hystoric fifth win at Monte Carlo, after dominating this year's edition too 

By his victory in the 76th edition of the prestigious monegasque race, Sebastien Loeb becomes the most succesful driver ever to compete at Monte Carlo. He surpassed legendary names like Sandro Munari, Walter Rohrl and Tommi Makinen, with 4 victories each.
The 34 years old frenchman has dominated this year's edition, making his victory looks very easy. He took the lead after the second stage and hold on to it until the end of the rally, winning a total of 10 special stages.
This year the fans couldn't enjoy the usual winter conditions, for which this rally is well-known. On some stages there were some ice and snow patches but generally, the grip was good. Some spectators, who were eager to see some slides, have thrown snow on the track. The weather was mild, the temperatures, very big for this time of the year, ranged between 0 and 10 to 12 degrees Celsius.
In these conditions, the tarmac specialists were slightly advantaged. The spanish driver Dani Sordo had a very good start, winning the first stage in front of Loeb, and comming second in the next one. Loeb was the driver to win the first leg, with Sordo second and Mikko Hirvonen third.
The second day was entirely Loeb's, who won five out of six stages. Despite a very good start, Sebastien's team-mate Dani Sordo has lost the contact with the frenchman due to rear differential problems on his Citroen. Mikko Hirvonen continued to have a very good rally, remaining in third spot. Behind the finn, there was the only close battle, the one for the fourth place between Chris Atkinson and Francois Duval. The belgian was 9 seconds behind the Subaru driver at the end of the day. Probably the most unfortunate driver in this rally was the 22 years old finnish driver Jari-Matti Latvala who was struggling to find his pace, after a big loss of time in the first day due to a flat tyre. Another driver who was in trouble was Khalid Al Qassimi, who crashed his Ford into a sidewall. The car's suspension was badly damaged and the arab driver had to retire.
The begining of the third day didn't bring anything new in the overall standing. Loeb seemed to fast for everyone else and was allready impossible to catch. His lead was now over one minute.
The 11th special stage was unlucky for Citroen's driver Daniel Sordo who retired with turbo problems. Hirvonen was now second and it looked like the finn would be able to stand up to Gronholm's performance.
The second part of the day was going to bring another forfeit, the one of Jari-Matti Latvala. He had to stop because of the suspension problems on his Ford.
In the last day, Sebastien Loeb didn't push like in the previous days, securing his win. In these conditions Francois Duval was the quickest, trying to beat Atkinson in third place. The belgian from Stobart won four out of the first five stages of the day and had the exact same time as Chris in the superspecial stage. That however was not enough and the australian remained third, with an advantage of 1.1 seconds. The best private driver was Jean-Marie Couq, at the wheel of a Peugeout 307 WRC.
At the end Loeb had won with a over 2 and a half minutes over the second place occupied by Mikko Hirvonen. The french said: "More than the fact that this was our 37th WRC victory and our fifth Monte win, I think the most significant thing is the way we won this year. Our C4 performed faultlessly throughout and the set-up we chose for the start proved excellent. The C4 and the Pirelli tyres also functioned well together on these asphalt stages which were often damp. It's always nice to start the season with a win, but I have no intention of getting carried away because there are some very difficult rallies to come."
Mikko Hirvonen who came second had a very good rally, being not a tarmac rally lover. "Second is a great result for me and a perfect start to the season," said 27-year-old Hirvonen. "I've never had a good rally here so to take a podium is fantastic and it almost feels as good as a win. I started the season how I wanted to with a good result. I didn't know what to expect from this rally but my plan for the year is to finish second if I can't win a rally. When I moved into second I eased off because I was under no pressure from behind.”

final results

Adi Diaconescu,
Autorally.ro team