Rally France: Citroen leg 2 summary

Sebastien Loeb and Citroen en route to more world titles!

With Sebastien Loeb and Daniel Elena in the lead and Dani Sordo and Diego Vallejo in second place, the two Citroen Total World Rally Team crews are still in front in Rally France - Alsace. With fewer than sixty timed kilometers left to cover on the final day of the event, Citroen, Sebastien Loeb and Daniel Elena are en route to more world titles!

Yesterday, there was already a huge crowd lining the stages of Rally France Alsace and today, Saturday, it grew even bigger. On the second day's leg in the Bas-Rhin department, Sebastien Loeb and Daniel Elena were back on roads they had covered some ten years ago in the French Rally Championship.

Six World Championship titles later, the crew in the no.1 C4 WRC no.1 dealt their rivals a body blow in the Pays d'Ormont stage. "It's a long stage with a lot of traps," explained Seb. "You have to control your pace. I decided to push right from the start where the surface was the least slippery and the roads were wider to be in a position to play it safe in the slipperiest sections." The split times confirmed that the Alsatian had chosen the right tactic. The gaps opened up very quickly in the early kilometres and then stabilized in the middle section. By the end, Loeb and Elena had increased their lead. After 35 kilometres Dani Sordo was 18.1s behind while Petter Solberg and Sebastien Ogier were over 20 seconds further back!

In the afternoon on roads that had been muddied by the passage of over one hundred cars, Loeb nursed his lead over his rivals. "There were still several traps. We gave ourselves a couple of major scares including one that could have proved fatal in the second stage," said Elena.

A concentrated Loeb answered all the questions fired at him by the media and still found the time to sign some autographs for his many fans. "The conditions were really very treacherous out there, but we had the right rhythm," he smiled at the end of the day. "We maintained the gap. With a forty-second lead before the last leg, it's looking pretty good."

Dani Sordo and Diego Vallejo, second on the road, tried to match their team-mates' pace early on. The Spaniards set off at high speed and then decided to defend their second place in the afternoon.

"I set out intending to race this morning," stated Sordo, "but I wasn't on the pace in the long stage. We've managed to widen the gap to Petter Solberg, and that's the most important thing. You have to remain fully concentrated and not think about the end of the rally. Tomorrow's stages will be very quick with a lot of tight apexes. Nothing's easy here."

-source: citroen