Super 1600 round-up: Loeb champion

Dallavilla and Loeb were always likely to be serious contenders but neither was the quickest out of the blocks on Friday morning - Belgian Francois Duval put his Ford into the lead on the first test, but engine problems soon accounted for the Puma driver. Loeb then assumed the lead but Dallavilla pressured the three-times winner, and brake glitches later on in that opening afternoon allowed the Italian to move to the top of the category timesheets overnight.

The opening, long stage on Saturday morning was always going to be crucial and it proved disastrous for Dallavilla. His Punto's power steering failed shortly after the start, leaving him to grapple with the car for nearly 30km.

His power steering repaired, Dallavilla began to eat into Loeb's slim advantage and the pair started the final day's four stages separated by less than 20 seconds. Over the first pair of tests the Punto driver's net gain was just over three seconds. But he gambled on tyre choice for the final two stages, electing to carry a pair of hand-cut tyres in case the heavens opened. To slick-shod Loeb's disappointment, they did, and a charging Dallavilla used the penultimate stage's 24km to close the gap between the leading pair to just 5.7 seconds.

All Loeb could do was bolt on his fresh slicks for the final, wet 31km and hope for the best... It was enough.

"It's a fantastic feeling to win the title like this," said Loeb. "On some of the other rallies this year we've had quite a bit of an advantage but here, Andrea has been fighting with us right up to the last corner. I wasn't happy when I saw the rain before SS15 and then saw he had some cuts in his spare tyres! All I could do for the last stage was use the new slick tyres and try my best, and I'm glad it worked. Now I can go to the Rally GB just to learn, get experience, make good pacenotes and relax."


Loeb Citroen 4h 16m 16.4
Dallavilla Fiat +8.5s
Basso Fiat +5m 09.3
McShea Citroen +5m 31.5
Vallejo Fiat +7m 57.0
Stenshorne Ford +9m 35.7


Loeb (F) 40, Dallavilla (I) 30, Basso (I) 10, Stenshorne (N) 8, Cols (B) 7,
Fontana (I) & Duval (F) & McShea (GB) 6, Valimaki (FIN) & Magaud (F) 4,
Robert (F) & Cols (B) 3, Vallejo (E) 2, Chemin (I) & Ceccato (I) & Galanti (PY) 1.