Loeb takes Citroen's third straight 1-2 finish

Loeb and his co-driver, Daniel Elena, dominated, leading from lights to flag in their Citron C4 WRC to score their ninth victory of 2008. Team-mates Dani Sordo and co-driver Marc Marti shadowed Loeb home to complete Citron's third one-two finish in Catalunya.

Loeb and Elena are now 12 points ahead of Mikko Hirvonen in the WRC standings, with three rallies remaining and Citron is 27 points ahead in the Manufacturers' championship.

Commenting on the rally, Sbastien explained "The stages we contested on day three were narrow, the asphalt was in a fairly poor state and it was quite bumpy, so we took special care not to pick up a puncture, I had to adapt the way I drove to manage the rate of wear on our Pirelli tyres. But we didn't make any mistakes and our C4 WRC performed impeccably from start to finish."

Sbastien's next challenge will be this weekend (Oct 10-12) on the French island of Corsica.

Final leaderboard on 44th RallyRACC Catalunya-Costa Daurada*
1. S. Loeb/D. Elena (Citron C4) 3h21min 17.4s
2. D. Sordo/M. Mart (Citron C4) + 24.9
3. M. Hirvonen/J. Lehtinen (Ford Focus) + 1min 02.5s
4. F. Duval/ P. Pivato (Ford Focus) + 1min 10.8s
5. P. Solberg/ P. Mills (Subaru Impreza) + 3min 27.4s
6. JM. Latvala/ M. Anttila (Ford Focus) + 4min 03.8s

FIA World Rally Championship Manufacturer Standings after round 12 of 15*
1st Citron-Total, 159 pts; 2nd Ford, 132 points; 3rd Subaru, 80 pts; 4th Stobart, 55 pts - 5th Munchi's, 22 pts - 6th Suzuki, 20 pts.

FIA World Rally Championship Driver Standings after round 12 of 15*
1st S. Loeb, 96 pts; 2nd M. Hirvonen, 84 points; 3rd D. Sordo, 59 pts; 4th C. Atkinson, 42 pts; 5th JM. Latvala, 37 pts; 6th P. Solberg, 36 pts

Credits: JRC