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Sebastien Loeb wins Rally of Turkey

Sebastien Loeb claimed victory in the Turkish round of the WRC
Sebastien Loeb claimed victory in the Turkish round of the WRC

Defending FIA World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb extended his lead at the top of his season's standings by taking victory in the Rally of Turkey.

The French Citroen driver, a six-time world title winner, built on his overnight lead of 16 seconds to win by almost a minute.

With the first two stages of the final day cancelled because of heavy rain, Loeb finished the event 54.5secs ahead of Petter Solberg, another Citroen C4 WRC driver.

BP Ford driver Mikko Hirvonen was third, 48.9secs behind Solberg.
The win was the 57th world championship race victory for Loeb who heads the standings with 93 points, with Solberg in second on 53, one point ahead of Hirvonen.

Loeb opted to lead from the front rather than try to let his rivals sweep the loose gravel before him so he could get better stage times, as had been the case in the last round in Jordan.

He said: ‘We decided to stay first on the road and it was a good choice.

‘It looked good for a while, but they cancelled a lot of stages today.

‘I tried this morning but was very calm this afternoon,’ added Loeb who survived a near miss after brushing a tree.

Hirvonen hit a rock in the morning and picked up a puncture which dropped him to fourth behind Dani Sordo.

But he regained a podium place when the Citroen stopped with two stages to go.

‘I started this morning hoping we could fight for second or even the win,’ Hirvonen said.

‘We gave it everything, it went wrong and I lost my position, but now we're here [in third] again, so it's okay.

‘But Sebastien is getting away again in the championship. I have to push harder in the next one.’

Ogier had looked comfortable in the lead before a tyre blew on Saturday afternoon and he could do no better than fourth.

‘It was a quite perfect weekend apart from one puncture, but that's part of rallying,’ said Ogier.

Kimi Raikkonen had his best race of the season by holding off Federico Villagra (Munchi's Ford) and Matthew Wilson (Stobart Ford) to take fifth.

Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala came back from a roll on Saturday to finish eighth.

Ninth went to Ford's Dennis Kuipers and Suzuki's Aaron Burkart rounded out the top 10.

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