The two Citroën C4 WRCs continue to dominate the head of the leaderboard of the 75th Rallye Monte Carlo. French reigning World Champion Sébastien Loeb maintains his advantage over team-mate Daniel Sordo with Finn Marcus Grönholm in a comfortable third position in the lead Ford Focus.
Today’s route took in two loops of three stages covering 128 competitive kilometres and, once again, warm and dry conditions greeted the crews on what is traditionally a snow and ice rally; the only wintry conditions being just 500 metres of ice in one of the day’s stages. Loeb was the pace-setter in the opening test, but then lost time in the next one, backing off in the tricky conditions. He nevertheless remains largely unchallenged and, with just the 2.8 kilometre super special stage in Monaco to run tomorrow morning, looks set to claim his fourth Rallye Monte Carlo victory.
Despite not winning a stage today, Daniel Sordo has maintained second and is on course to equal his best result at World Championship level. Marcus Grönholm, unable to match the pace of the two Citroëns, holds third but was lucky to continue when he hit a bridge this afternoon and damaged one of the rear wheels.
The battle raging throughout the day has however focused on Subaru’s Chris Atkinson and Ford driver Mikko Hirvonen, fourth and fifth respectively. Atkinson held the initial advantage and both drivers broke Citroën’s stronghold of fastest stage times, but Hirvonen’s determination to overhaul the Australian prevailed when he set his second fastest time and moved into fourth by just four-tenths of a second. Atkinson retaliated but was again defeated by Hirvonen on the penultimate stage of the rally and the pair will contest the final super special stage in Monaco dicing for fourth position.
Rallye Automobile Monte-Carlo - Results after Leg 3
| 1 | Sébastien Loeb/Daniel Elena | Citroën C4 WRC | 3 hr 08 min 36.2sec |
| 2 | Daniel Sordo/Marc Marti | Citroën C4 WRC | 3 hr 09 min 07.3sec |
| 3 | Marcus Grönholm/Timo Rautiainen | Ford Focus RS WRC | 3 hr 09 min 59.8sec |
| 4 | Mikko Hirvonen/Jarmo Lehtinen | Ford Focus RS WRC | 3 hr 11 min 04.8sec |
| 5 | Chris Atkinson/Glenn Macneall | Subaru Impreza WRC | 3 hr 11 min 05.6sec |
| 6 | Petter Solberg/Philip Mills | Subaru Impreza WRC | 3 hr 11 min 42.2sec |
Note to Editors: Attached image of rally leader Sébastien Loeb is copyright free for editorial use. Please click here.
