Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena were back to their winning ways in the BFGoodrich-shod Citroën C4 WRC at the Rally Mexico last weekend. The region’s daunting gravel roads were no match for the team’s skills and added to the significance of their triumph. Loeb’s main rival, Marcus Grönholm recovered from a slow start to claim second-place, while his teammate, Mikko Hirvonen (Ford/BFGoodrich Tires) came out of his fierce fight with Dani Sordo (Citroën/BFGoodrich Tires) and Chris Atkinson (Subaru/BFGoodrich Tires) to clinch third-place on the final morning.
The Rally Mexico was the first gravel fixture of the last four WRC events and is eagerly awaited by team observers as a performance guide following the more specific winter rounds that traditionally kick off the championship.
This year’s trip across the Atlantic was particularly significant as it marked the loose gravel debut of two new cars: the Citroën C4 WRC and the 2007-spec Subaru Impreza WRC. Thursday gave an early idea of the running order when Dani Sordo, Sébastien Loeb and Petter Solberg topped the practice timesheets and everyone was excited to see whether that trend would continue at the start on Friday morning.
The first three stages of Leg 1 were wide and fast, and took crews to altitudes in excess of 6,000 feet in the mountains between Leon and Guanajuato. They also confirmed the field’s running order as Solberg’s new Impreza WRC and Loeb’s Citroën C4 WRC battled for the early supremacy, tailed by Atkinson (Impreza) and Sordo (C4).
Meanwhile, Marcus Grönholm and Mikko Hirvonen, the dominating forces of the last two rounds, followed further back in fifth and sixth place. As provisional leaders of the Drivers’ standings, the two were first on the road and were forced to cut a clean line for their rivals further down the order, which always proves to be a big handicap in Mexico.
When crews returned to the same stages on Friday afternoon, the roads had pretty much been swept clean, while ground temperatures soared in the sun and a thrilling battle began to shape up between Loeb and Solberg, which had many similarities as last year’s race. But also like last year, their duel ended prematurely when the Subaru’s oil cooler began to leak, stopping the Norwegian in his tracks between SS5 and SS6 and leaving Loeb on his own in the front. The following day, a score of four fastest times enabled the Frenchman to put the finishing touches to his 30th world class win (his second in a row in Mexico) which takes him to second place in the Drivers’ standings behind Grönholm.
Although the Finn didn’t get off to an ideal start, an excellent run on the morning of Day 2 enabled him to climb from fifth to second overall by mid-day on Saturday. By this stage, however, he was practically a minute behind Loeb and knew he had little chance of catching up, so he had to settle for the silver medal and eight points. Even so, he had to maintain a quick pace on Saturday afternoon because of the battle waging in his wake between a trio of youngsters all looking to join him on the podium.
Dani Sordo, Mikko Hirvonen and Chris Atkinson finished Day 2 in that order after a blistering second day, but they all also had stories of how they had lost valuable seconds: Sordo was slowed by hanging dust and Atkinson landed awkwardly after a jump, while Hirvonen reported a spin. At the start of Leg 3, Sordo led Hirvonen by 2.8 seconds and Atkinson by 12.6 sec. But Mikko Hirvonen profited from the final day to edge past the Spaniard to clinch a top-three finish.
