Catalunya - Citroen Sport - FinishAfter the shouts of joy that could be heard emanating from the Citroën Sport camp yesterday evening in the service park to hail the win of the French rugby squad over the All Blacks, there were further cheers today to celebrate the Citroën
C4 WRC's one-two result on this weekend's 2007 Rally Catalunya, with
Sebastien Loeb/Daniel Elena winning ahead of their team-mates Dani Sordo/Marc Martí.
The third leg of the event featured a loop of two stages to be covered twice. However, with a total competitive distance of 85.66km, the day was no jaunt and was packed with potential hazards that could by no means be taken lightly. Despite the respective leads of Seb (43.6s) and Dani (30.7s) over their closest chaser yesterday evening, both Citroën crews took the final day of the season's twelfth round extremely seriously.
"We continued at the same pace as yesterday," explains
Sebastien Loeb. "Today's stages were 16 and 26km, so they were quite long and it was crucial to stay concentrated. I made a point of not taking any risks, not cutting the corners too much and lifting over the dirtier portions. Running on hard compound dry weather BFGoodrich tyres, our Citroën C4 WRC ran like clockwork and I am very happy to have won."
As sunny weather moved in over the Costa Daurada region, the day was a resounding success for Spain's Dani Sordo/Marc Martí, too.
"Having to manage our position isn't the most exciting or easiest of tasks" related Dani. "Even so, we still had fun today again. We have finished ahead of Grönholm and I am delighted to have met the target we were set."
Dani Sordo was acclaimed by his home crowd and very much in demand throughout the weekend, so he was understandably beaming after this afternoon's podium ceremony.
"We had quite a lot of pressure on our shoulders before the start," he admits. "Everyone was expecting us to score a strong result and we were very fired to do our best to finish ahead of Grönholm. We managed to achieve our goal and our C4 was awesomely competitive in all the different conditions we faced. I even led a World Rally Championship round for the first time! That's a great sign going into the next round which is once again on asphalt."
Source Citroen Sport
