WRC Cyprus Rally: Another Rally Another Day of Loeb Domination

Domination is the word of the day at the World Rally Championship Cyprus Rally. Sebastien Loeb continues with his total domination of the sport by winning five of the six stages and taking a 41.8-second lead into leg two.

Even the afternoon rains could slow the Citroen driver. He ended the day with what should prove a large enough lead to hold off any potential when he will have to run first on dusty gravel roads.

"I was a bit too careful in the rain in some places," said Loeb. "It's the last stage of the day and I didn't want to make any mistakes as I have a good lead. I didn't take big risks. Tomorrow we'll have to clean the road but if it's raining maybe it will not be so bad. I don't know what we'll see tomorrow, but I'll try to continue like this."

Loeb’s teammate, Dani Sordo finished the day in second place maintaining Citroen's one-two formation.

Mikko Hirvonen bounced back from a poor performance in the morning and is somewhat content having minimized the time loss to the leaders in the afternoon. The Ford Focus driver will be hoping to take advantage of a cleaner road surface tomorrow, but isn't confident about his chances of closing on Loeb.

"The afternoon was good, we lost maybe 14 seconds to Sebastien, which is acceptable," he said. "But in the morning we just didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to drive in these conditions with gravel tires. It's going to be really tough," he admitted.

"Especially if it rains, Sebastien will be in a really good position for tomorrow. It's going to be difficult to catch him."

Hirvonen’s teammate, Jari-Matti Latvala is just 8.6s behind Hirvonen in the second Ford.

All alone in fifth is independent driver Petter Solberg in his Citroen Xsara. Last year’s Junior World Rally Champion, Sebastien Ogier kept close to Solberg early in the day but after stalling his Citroen at the starting line and then a spin later on SS4 he dropped to over 30 seconds behind in sixth place.

Evgeny Novikov has pulled away from eighth-placed Matthew Wilson in the Stobart Ford rounding out the points paying positions.

Stobart Ford driver Henning Solberg had an inglorious end to his participation in the Cyprus Rally. On their way to the first stage of the event a pickup truck swerved in front and collided with the Ford Focus.

Henning attempted repairs on site to no result and had to retire from the Cyprus Rally.

Leading positions after day one:

Pos  Driver              Car      Time
 1.  Sebastien Loeb      Citroen  1h37:46.3
 2.  Dani Sordo          Citroen   +   41.8
 3.  Mikko Hirvonen      Ford      + 1:00.2
 4.  Jari-Matti Latvala  Ford      + 1:08.3
 5.  Petter Solberg      Citroen   + 2:27.1
 6.  Sebastien Ogier     Citroen   + 3:03.0
 7.  Evgeny Novikov      Citroen   + 3:16.0
 8.  Matthew Wilson      Ford      + 4:25.9
 9.  Conrad Rautenbach   Citroen   + 4:35.3
10.  Federico Villagra   Ford      + 5:02.