French driver conquers rally roads of West

By Mick Glasson

November 15, 2004

Western Australia's south-west might be declared a French foreign region after a Frenchman, driving a French car, with French tyres equalled a French record in winning Rally Australia yesterday.

While the past two world champions Marcus Gronholm and Petter Solberg both crashed not once but twice, Sebastien Loeb barely set a wheel wrong to make one of the toughest rounds of the championship look easy.

The 30-year-old Loeb, who had already secured the world crown along with the makers' title for Citroen before this event started, equalled compatriot Didier Auriol's 1992 record of six wins in a season.

Going one better than last year when he was second to Solberg, Loeb dominated the event, leading from the 10th special stage to beat Finn Harri Rovanpera, Peugeot, by one minute 55.1 seconds with Belgian Francois Duval a further 1:45.1 in arrears in his Ford.

And the relatively inexperienced Loeb had to do it all alone after his teammate, Spaniard Carlos Sainz, withdrew before the start because of injuries received when he crashed during reconnaissance last Tuesday.

Loeb initially trailed both Gronholm and Solberg before moving to second when Solberg crashed on Friday and then took the lead when Gronholm wrapped his Peugeot around a tree on Saturday.

With the already small field robbed of three of the faster cars, Loeb then needed only to control his pace and make sure that he, too, was not caught out by the notoriously slippery gravel roads.

But he still managed to set the fastest time on 13 of the 25 special stages on the route to notch the 10th World Rally Championship win of his career.

Solberg and Gronholm both rejoined the action under new rules being tested for next season. This allows cars that fail to finish one leg to be repaired and start again.

Solberg's Subaru mechanics, having repaired his car once after a mishap during a practice run, had to do so again when he hit a rock and crashed into trees.

The Peugeot crew faced a bigger task with Gronholm's car, which was significantly damaged on Saturday. But they got it back only for Gronholm to write it off completely when he rolled it into trees yesterday.

To add insult to near-injury, Gronholm was fined $3300 by stewards after he was picked up by police driving at 25 km/h above a 90 km/h speed limit.

Yesterday's stages brought heartbreak for other drivers. Alister McRae was cruising to a championship win in the section for production cars when his Subaru's gearbox failed.

His demise allowed fellow Briton Niall McShea to take the title.

- West Australian