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Loeb dominates France leg one

Sebastien Loeb continues to dominate his home rally in France, leading by 22.7 seconds at the end of day one

The championship leader, who is poised to clinch his seventh consecutive title this weekend, took it easy for much of the afternoon, with a lot of mud having been dragged onto the stages during the morning loop. Loeb found the leg-ending Grand Ballon stage, which started over an hour late following various delays during the day, particularly frustrating.

"I'm happy just to finish this stage, because it was really in bad condition," said the Citroen driver.

Citroen Junior's Sebastien Ogier, now in third place behind Dani Sordo, agreed with Loeb, saying: "This stage was absolutely crazy - I think it was the worst stage I've done in my life. It was completely muddy everywhere and we drove very, very slowly because we had absolutely no grip."

However Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala has revelled in the conditions and was fastest on both SS5 and SS8. His burst of speed of asphalt - where he and Ford normally struggle - has taken him up to fourth ahead of the oversteering Petter Solberg.

"If it's very narrow and very, very slippery, it seems our car is now working really well in these conditions," said Latvala.

"I don't know if the Citroens are a bit stiffer and more stable in the very fast stuff, but it seems the narrow and slippy stuff is suiting me. It's getting more interesting now."

Sordo also coped well with the muddy asphalt and moved up from fourth to second ahead of Ogier, but he admitted he was surprised to see Latvala moving into contention.

"It's a really good fight, really close," said Sordo. "Jari-Matti's stage times are really fast, I don't understand it. It's really dirty, maybe he's good in these conditions, but it's very difficult."

Mikko Hirvonen has now totally lost touch with the leaders. The Ford driver is nearly two minutes down in sixth place, and admitted he was lucky to complete SS8 after two errors, one of which saw him clout the mountainside.

Kimi Raikkonen remains seventh in the second Citroen Junior car. With Frigyes Turan's Peugeot stopping on SS8, satellite Ford drivers Federico Villagra (Munchi's), Matthew Wilson (Stobart) and Ken Block (Monster) complete the top 10.

Eyvind Brynildsen leads the S2000 class by just 4s over Patrik Sandell, though the unregistered Henning Solberg is the top S2000 car on the road. Armindo Araujo and Thierry Neuville are dominating the Production and Junior contests respectively.

Pos  Driver              Car        Time/Gap
 1.  Sebastien Loeb      Citroen  1h18m27.8s
 2.  Dani Sordo          Citroen     + 22.7s
 3.  Sebastien Ogier     Citroen     + 25.6s
 4.  Jari-Matti Latvala  Ford        + 41.8s
 5.  Petter Solberg      Citroen     + 45.8s
 6.  Mikko Hirvonen      Ford      + 1m50.8s
 7.  Kimi Raikkonen      Citroen   + 3m27.4s
 8.  Federico Villagra   Ford      + 5m34.6s
 9.  Matthew Wilson      Ford      + 5m58.1s
10.  Ken Block           Ford      + 7m01.4s

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