Loeb cruises to German victory

The win not only extends Loeb's points lead yet further, but means that the Frenchman has equalled the record for the most rally victories, having now won 26 World Rally Championship rounds.

The result was effectively decided on the first day, when Loeb and Sordo made the correct choice of soft slick tyres in the damp but changeable conditions.

With main rivals Marcus Gronholm and Petter Solberg guessing wrongly and losing over two minutes as they floundered on unsuitable hard slicks, Loeb could approach Saturday and Sunday in a relaxed frame of mind.

He had a scare at the start of leg two when his young teammate Sordo - nominated as Kronos' second points scorer for the first time - set a series of searing stage times and started hacking into Loeb's lead.

But the team soon ordered the pair to drive responsibility and protect their advantage, so the second half of the event became a cruise to victory, although the varied weather conditions meant that they could never totally relax.

At the end of the rally, Loeb was 33.8 seconds ahead of Sordo, with third-placed Gronholm a further 1:45.4 adrift.

The Ford driver had begun the rally expecting to repeat his Acropolis form, but was downcast as early as Friday lunchtime after the tyre error, and already talking of salvaging a few points from Germany and getting on to next weekend's Rally Finland as soon as possible.

He managed to secure third after a long battle with Citroen privateer Toni Gardemeister, who had held the final podium spot on leg one but then struggled for grip on Saturday morning.

That allowed Gronholm to reclaim third, which he held to the finish despite Gardemeister mounting a concerted fightback during the final leg.

Gronholm's teammate Mikko Hirvonen suffered similar problems on Friday, but surged back into contention later on, especially on the drier stages. Fifth was a respectable result given that he had fallen as low as 14th on leg one.

Manfred Stohl survived a series of poor tyre choices and then a clutch problem on Saturday afternoon to take sixth for OMV Peugeot.

Two of the stars of the rally occupied the final points positions.

Red Bull Skoda's rookie Andreas Aigner catapulted himself into the top six with a brave drive on cut slicks during Friday's wet early running, and held his ground during the remaining stages to earn seventh - despite a late scare when he went off the road just three kilometres from the finish of the final stage.

That nearly cost Aigner a place to fellow Skoda privateer Jan Kopecky, who impressively set two fastest stage times on Saturday and ended up with a deserved point.

Chris Atkinson was the only works Subaru driver to finish, taking ninth in his year-old Impreza. Solberg retired from fifth with engine problems on Saturday morning, while Stephane Sarrazin dropped out of ninth when gearbox problems struck on the final leg.

Results:

Pos  Driver        Make           Time
 1.  Loeb          Citroen  3h 28:34.1
 2.  Sordo         Citroen      + 33.8
 3.  Gronholm      Ford       + 2:19.2
 4.  Gardemeister  Citroen    + 2:33.8
 5.  Hirvonen      Ford       + 3:34.2
 6.  Stohl         Peugeot    + 4:25.9
 7.  Aigner        Skoda      + 5:42.6
 8.  Kopecky       Skoda      + 5:45.8
 9.  Atkinson      Subaru     + 7:25.0
10.  MacHale       Ford      + 12:56.1
11.  Ekstrom       Skoda     + 17:39.9
12.  Wilson        Ford      + 18:34.9
13.  Wevers        Toyota    + 19:22.9
14.  Sarrazin      Subaru    + 21:39.1
15.  Pons          Citroen   + 22:09.6
16.  Poulsen       Toyota    + 24:03.7
17.  Meeke         Citroen   + 25:26.6
18.  Casier        Renault   + 26:05.2
19.  Schelle       Suzuki    + 26:33.0
20.  Valousek      Suzuki    + 26:55.3