Sébastien Loeb wins Rally Germany

As expected, Sébastien Loeb dominated this ninth round of the World Rally Championship. Beaten last year by Sébastien Ogier, the Frenchman did not tremble and made no mistakes unlike his opponents to sign a fifth consecutive success in the category. He finishes the Rally from Germany with a lead of 2'00"1 over Jari-Matti Latvala and 2'31"4 over Mikko Hirvonen. The second Citroën Total World Rally Team driver never really found the rhythm behind the wheel of the Citroën DS3 WRC, but still managed to finish on the podium thanks to the off-tracks of the other drivers.

Mads Ostberg achieved another great performance at the wheel of his Adapta World Rally Team Ford Fiesta RS WRC, finishing in fourth place. The Norwegian was able to avoid the pitfalls of the German Rally and comes back on Petter Solberg in the championship. At the finish, he beat Chris Atkinson by 5'46"0, who took a good fifth place for his debut with Mini in the WRC. At the wheel of his modest Skoda Fabia S2000, Sébastien Ogier scored his best result of the season by finishing sixth, just 40 seconds behind the Australian. The Frenchman is ahead of his teammate Andreas Mikkelsen, Nasser Al-Attiyah, Ott Tänak and Dani Sordo.

Petter Solberg kept pace with Sébastien Loeb for a long time, but the Norwegian made a big mistake on the first pass into the Arena Panzerplatte on Saturday morning. The Ford driver tore off his right rear wheel on a stone, losing all his hopes of a podium. This famous 46,54 kilometer long special caused many victims during the second stage of the Rally Germany. In battle to score his first WRC podium, Thierry Neuville went off the track following a poor judgment made during reconnaissance. To avoid spectators in a field, the Belgian driver preferred to finish his race in a tree where he pierced a radiator.

In the championship, Sébastien Loeb now has a lead of 54 points over his teammate Mikko Hirvonen. After his retirement, Petter Solberg can say goodbye to his title hopes since he is 95 points behind the Frenchman.

Discover the analysis of the Rally Germany carried out by our special correspondent in the next issue of AUTOhebdo, available from Tuesday in digital version for iPad, PC and Mac, and from Wednesday on newsstands.