Report: Loeb dominates Monte

Loeb also won the event on-the-road in 2002, but lost the win due to a technicality regarding a post-final stage, pre-finish wheel change - which remains one of the most bizarre stories in WRC history. This time around, his victory was perhaps his most emphatic to date. Despite making a relatively slow start, to which he freely admitted, Sebastien wrested the lead from Peugeot's Marcus Gronholm at the end of the opening day and kept the field at arm's length for the following two days to win by well over a minute.

"For me it's important to start the season like this," said Loeb. "After that I'm a lot more confident. At the beginning I started a little bit carefully. After that I saw good conditions and tried to push hard. Then in the fog we made a big difference. Today I tried to be careful again. Now we have Sweden and that's very exciting."

Behind the flying Frenchman, Markko Martin went on the attack on the final day. His Ford team-mate Francois Duval was his target, and the Estonian carved 9.4secs out of the Belgian's advantage on the opening stage of the final day. Duval fought back on the next test, regaining 3.1secs, but couldn't hold a candle to Markko on the last two tests, and Martin grabbed the position by 7secs.

"Second was good, I'd have been happy with any podium place," said Martin. "And we're leading the manufacturers' points - that's good, very good."

Reigning world champion Petter Solberg was quickest on SS13, his first fastest stage time of 2004, but he hit trouble on the next stage when he went off and damaged his left-front corner for the rest of the event. That meant he slumped to seventh, which summed up his rally after striking trouble right from the word go on Friday, when he struck a fence post on the opening stage.

Although beaten by Martin, this was certainly Duval's most convincing WRC showing to date, ironic as Ford has dropped him from its manufacturer point-scoring squad for the next round in Sweden. But asphalt rather than snow is the Belgian's forte, and he drove brilliantly on the second day of the Monte in particular.

Gronholm and Peugeot can be satisfied with the 307 WRC's debut on an event that has been kind to neither in the past. Just a couple of mistakes from Marcus, who admits he hates the rally, dropped him back to fourth. He was backed up by Freddy Loix, who was typically solid if unspectacular, and was close enough to Solberg to take full advantage of his late woes to grab fifth position.

Gilles Panizzi grabbed three points for Mitsubishi as the Japanese manufacturer returned to the sport. He complained of steering and handling problems for much of the event, but posted some encouraging times on day two and grabbed sixth from the hamstrung Solberg on the very last stage of the event.

Privateer Olivier Burri rounded out the top eight in his Subaru, benefiting from the retirements of works drivers such as Carlos Sainz (Citroen), Mikko Hirvonen (Subaru) and Gianluigi Galli (Mitsubishi), who all crashed out.