THE RETURN OF A CHAMPION
Impressive fourth victory for Sebastien Loeb in the principality after being seriously hurt in a mountain bike accident at the end of the 2006 season
Triple world champion Sebastien
Loeb from the Alsace is a specialist for asphalt rallies. Over the winter he had
perfectly recovered from a multiple broken left arm sustained in a serious crash
when riding his mountain bike in the autumn of 2006. With the brandnew Citroen
C4, replacing the former Xsara WRC, Loeb was the dominating man of the 2007
Monte Carlo Rally only a little challenged by his team mate Dani Sordo. In the
finish the Spaniard was 38 second behind Loeb, who won the tradtional
season opener for the fourth time overall - only had been done by Walter Roehrl,
Sandro Munari and Tommi Maekinen before. In contrast to the regular conditions
of the Monte neither snow nor ice were seen at the Maritime Alps in 2007, maybe
a tribute to the global warming do not making a halt in that part of Europe. Up
to 15° C mostly with dry, but sometimes also wet roads had not been expected by
many competitors, so their tyre choice, they had made before, was not effective
enough to prevent the Citroens from winning. Two-times world champion Marcus
Groenholm in the Ford Focus on third place suffered under too soft tyres and
also under gearbox problems. For this reason he had decided for a conservative
strategy: Better six points sure than no points with risk. A fierce battle had
been for fourth place between Mikko Hirvonen and Australia`s Chris Atkinson with
the Subaru Impreza seeing the Ford Focus driver ahead until the last, 2.8
kilometres long stage on Sunday at the Monaco harbour. Over the winter Subaru
had switched from Pirelli to BF Goodrich tyres, a choice that must be considered
a good one with Atkinson and Solberg finishing fourth and sixth position only
four weeks after the first test with the new tyre brand. A strong performance
also was coming from Tony Gardemeister with a privately entered Mitsubishi
Lancer being on 2005 standard. The final worldchampionship point was conquered
by Jan Kopecky in the factory backed Skoda Fabia. For the first time for many
years the Monte Carlo Rally had got two stages at night on Thursday. Very
spectacular also was the last stage on Sunday around harbour and swimming pool
using important parts of Monaco`s traditional Grand Prix track.
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Results
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15 Stages / 329 km
1 S Loeb (Citroen) 3:10:22
2 D Sordo (Citroen) +0:38
3 M Groenholm (Ford) +1:22
4 C Atkinson (Subaru) +2:28
5 M Hirvonen (Ford) +2:29
6 P Solberg (Subaru) +3:12
7 T Gardemeister (Mitsubishi) +3:28
8 J Kopecky (Skoda) +4:39
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