WRC Turkey: Loeb and Citroen again
from Automotive (1582 articles)
Click image to enlarge
Image Gallery ( 18 images )June 5, 2005 Citroen continued its crushing domination of the 2005 World Rally Championship at the weekend with Sébastien Loeb's fourth win in a row after his complete domination of the Turkish round of the championship in his Citroen Xsara at the weekend (3-5 June 2005). Citroen has now won three Rallies of Turkey, Loeb has extended his world championship lead and with Carlos Sainz being brought out of retirement to bolster the speed of the second car finishing in fourth place, Citroen's bid to retain its manufacturer's title is back on track as it moved to within four points of leader Peugeot (72 points).
"I couldn't have wished for better," said Citroen Team manager Guy Fréquelin at the finish. "We have obtained exactly the result we wanted. Seb, Carlos, Daniel and Marc all made full use of the potential of their cars which proved impeccablyreliable thanks to the outstanding work put in by the team. Carlos' come-back was complicated by the conditions and the weather but he didn't put a foot wrong. Amazing and worthy of the true champion we know him to be."
It is now hard to imagine that Sébastien Loeb was ever branded tarmac only specialist, with the talented French driver totally dominating yet another tough gravel round that saw all his rivals either fall by the wayside or running well behind him. At one point he had a lead of more than minute and despite a hard charging Solberg trying to make up for a poor tyre choice on the opening stages, Loeb ended the event with a lead of nearly a minute.
Four wins in a row… I'm clearly on a positive run at the moment!" said Loeb at the finish. "But I want to stress the importance of the team's contribution to this series of wins. They are more motivated than ever and continue not to make any mistakes. It was also a big pleasure to join forces with Carlos again. We picked up our association as though we had parted company the previous day. The silver fern the Maoris gave me in New Zealand? It's still in the car. A bit faded, but it's still there and it will stay there for the next rounds!"
Carlos Sainz also had a huge smile on his face as he was applauded at the finish: "I'm obviously delighted to be at the finish. It wasn't as straightforward as that to pull off my mission. I had to find the right pace to finish high up and score as many points as possible, while at the same time not making any mistakes despite the awful weather conditions. But we've done it! I am very happy for Seb after his impressive win. It's been a superb weekend for the whole team. Working with everyone again has been a big occasion and lived up every bit to my experience with Citroën as a whole."
While Loeb’s five wins for the year have him 12 points clear of Solberg at the head of the table, Subaru seemed happy with Solberg’s second place. "We come to every event to win, so we're never going to be satisfied finishing second,” said Subaru World Rally Team Principal David Lapworth, “but from a championship perspective it's eight solid points and that's a good result.”
“Petter's driven very well, it was a great performance from the team and we've stopped Sebastien extending his championship lead by more than two points. Looking ahead to Greece, I think we've shown after the last couple of days that we're in a strong position and can continue to put pressure on Sebastien."
Petter Solberg was also matter-of-fact: "The rally has actually worked very well for me and we've had a good two days. I took quite a lot of time out of Marcus yesterday and had a good feeling that I could do something similar today. We attacked quite hard on the first stage today, but on the second we just drove according to the splits. We managed to secure second place and I'm very pleased for Subaru and the team. Our pace was encouraging, but we still have to find a solution to challenge Sebastien all the time. It would have been good to have fought more closely with him, but that's how it is and we've done the best we can."
By finishing third and fifth in the Rally of Turkey, the Peugeot 307 WRC drivers Marcus Grönholm and Markko Märtin enabled Peugeot to retain the lead of the manufacturers’ championship but only just.
Gallery Images
Share this article
