Loeb's 50th victory in Cyprus

For this third day, Sébastien Loeb had decided to just manage his lead over Hirvonen, and not to take any risks on terrain made very delicate by the night rains as well as the cool winds. The Ford driver will finally finish the rally 27??2 behind the Alsatian, after having achieved the best times in the first two special stages.

“50 is a really nice number, but I don't plan to stop there! ", declared Sébastien after winning his fourth victory in a row in Cyprus, his fourth victory in a row and therefore his fiftieth victory in WRC.

The Fords once again experienced a frustrating rally since, once again, they were unable to compete with Sébastien Loeb and his C4 throughout the weekend. Manhandled, Hirvonen finished second, as in Norway, while Latvala was forced to make up the numbers after going off the road in SS 8 on Saturday.

“I think we lost the rally on Friday,” admitted the vice-world champion. “Seb is truly incredible! If the roads had been dry it might have been different. We are definitely faster on gravel now, so we can hope for a good fight in Portugal.”

For his part, Dani Sordo has finally resigned himself to fighting with Petter Solberg for third place, since the latter is not entered in the Manufacturers' Championship with his private team. The Norwegian once again proved what he is capable of at the wheel of a Citroën

“We realized that Petter was faster than us from the middle of the penultimate special, so we decided to slow down and secure the points for 3rd place for the Manufacturers' classification,” explained the Spaniard. .

Just behind, Sébastien Ogier also attacked very hard to win the battle for fifth place which pitted him against Matthew Wilson, but after having managed to pass his opponent in the last special, the Frenchman came out only 200 meters from the finish in an excess of trust and gave up.

Evgueny Novikov also had to throw in the towel from the start this morning, but Conrad Rautenbach took over to save the honor of the Citroën Junior Team. He will ultimately finish in 6th place in the rally. Federico Villagra and Khalid Al Qassimi complete the top 8.

In the P-WRC it was ultimately Patrik Sandell who won ahead of Armindo Araujo, who was suffering from gearbox problems, while in the Junior championship it was Martin Prokop who unsurprisingly took first place in the standings.

Untouchable until now, Sébastien Loeb therefore sees his lead increase a little further and now has eight points more than Mikko Hirvonen. Dani Sordo is thirteen points behind and Henning Solberg is twenty points behind.

The results are logically the same as far as the manufacturers are concerned: the Citroën Total team is first in the ranking with 48 points, Ford second with 32 points, Stobart last on the podium with 22 points. The Citroën Junior Team has 11 points on the clock, while the Munchi?s, which took part in its first rally of the season here, has only 3 for the moment.

The next round of the World Rally Championship will take place in Portugal, from April 2 to 5.