Zoom Clear sailing for Loeb in Corsica

Sébastien Loeb, Daniel Elena and their Citroen C4 led from start to finish to win the 52nd Rallye de France-Tour de Corse, round 13 of the 2008 World Rally Championship, thereby celebrating the four-time World Champions' tenth win of the season - a victory which sees them take a step closer to a possible fifth consecutive world title.

Today's programme consisted of two attempts at Agosta-Pont de Calzola (31.81km) and Pierra Rossa-Verghia (26.32km), two classic Tour de Corse stages but this year run in the opposite direction to their usual format. In total, Sunday's menu featured 116.26km of competitive action which had the potential to spring a few surprises.

The Citroen C4 WRC crew began the morning with a cushion of more than 50 seconds over their closest chasers and profited from the outstanding competitiveness of their car on the day's first test (SS13), which started with a steep climb up to the Col de Bellevalle, followed by a hairpin bend and the long, fast descent to Pila-Canale.

After a short road section, they moved on to SS14 which featured a wide, good surfaced road up to the Col de Gradello, after which a celebrated sequence of three hairpins marked the beginning of the narrow, bumpy and very fast run back down towards Coti-Chiavari near the coast.

The Citroen pair profited from the first loop to secure two further fastest times which enabled them to pull even further clear at the top of the leaderboard.

"The first two stages went well," reported Loeb at the mid-morning break in the sunshine on the harbourside in Ajaccio. "The main thing was to stay concentrated, so I preferred to push quite hard, but without taking any risks. We were first on the road, so the conditions were clean, and that meant we had less chance of coming across a rock in the middle of the stage."

"Contesting these two classics in the opposite direction wasn't a problem," he continued. "However, I must admit that when I heard that our closest rival for the 2008 Drivers' title was in trouble on SS13, the thought that we could perhaps wrap up the championship here in Corsica did pass my mind... but in the end he was able to continue."

The second visit to the same two stages passed off without a hitch for Loeb and Elena who went on to secure their fourth consecutive Tour de Corse win, a first in the history of the event. They are now closing hard on the outright records of Didier Auriol and Bernard Darniche who have both won this event six times.