Loeb clinches Rally Mexico victory

Having led for so much of the event, Petter Solberg had to be content with second place, 48.9 seconds adrift.

The Norweigan began the final day in an optimistic mood, hoping he could still take the fight to Loeb despite dropping 37.7 seconds behind his rival after power steering failure and a spin late on leg two.

But instead Solberg lost more time to Loeb in Leon, the rally's longest stage, after some issues with his brakes. With just the 18 kilometres of Silao and then a quick blast around the Nextel Superspecial remaining, it was clear that only a mechanical disaster or an uncharacteristic mistake could now stop Loeb. Neither materialised, and he duly clinched his first win of 2006 - a prospect that had looked unlikely when he completed the opening loop of leg one in fourth place, 33 seconds behind Solberg.

"On Friday we lost a lot of time because we were second on the road so we had to clean the stages," said Loeb. "Petter was really fast, but since then we pushed really hard and we came back and had a good lead. It was really a good rally for me."

Manfred Stohl completed the podium in his OMV Peugeot, continuing to ease away from the chasing Dani Sordo in the second Kronos Citroen. Both drivers took a measured approach to the final day and focused on getting to the finish rather than scrapping furiously for the final podium spot. Stohl was relieved to make it after struggling with the 307's handling all weekend, while fourth was a pleasing achievement for reigning Junior WRC Champion Sordo on his first attempt at the event.

Also cruising sensibly to the finish were Henning Solberg and Gareth MacHale in fifth and sixth. Brake problems plagued Solberg all weekend, and convinced him to switch to conservative points gathering mode early in the rally. For young Irish privateer MacHale, a debut top six so soon in his first WRC programme was a remarkable result.

The final leg was relatively anti-climactic compared to the incident and excitement of legs one and two, but Chris Atkinson and former championship leader Marcus Gronholm's recovery drives provided some late interest. Both had rolled on Friday afternoon - Gronholm while running third and closing on the leaders - and rejoined under SupeRally regulations on leg two. They came back from 19th and 23rd positions to seventh and eighth respectively.

Top 20 finishers:

Pos  Driver         Make        Time
 1.  Loeb           Citroen     3h 47:08.8
 2.  P Solberg      Subaru      + 48.9
 3.  Stohl          Peugeot     + 4:39.1
 4.  Sordo          Citroen     + 5:27.7
 5.  H Solberg      Peugeot     + 12:35.4
 6.  MacHale        Ford        + 16:02.3
 7.  Atkinson       Subaru      + 20:39.5
 8.  Gronholm       Ford        + 21:44.2
 9.  Arai           Subaru      + 22:34.6
10.  Trivino        Peugeot     + 22:47.7
11.  Al-Attiyah     Subaru      + 23:23.5
12.  Baldacci       Mitsubishi  + 28:23.8
13.  Perez-Companc  Ford        + 28:54.5
14.  Kuzaj          Subaru      + 32:20.8
15.  Hirvonen       Ford        + 36:10.1
16.  Uspenskiy      Subaru      + 37:21.8
17.  Wilson         Ford        + 39:48.7
18.  Ligato         Mitsubishi  + 45:29.3
19.  Vojtech        Mitsubishi  + 48:21.4
20.  Ortuno         Subaru      + 52:19.5