Eight consecutive wins for Loeb in Germany

Sebastian Loeb dominated this weekend’s Rally of Germany and secured its eighth consecutive win at the German rally. Always clear at the front the Citroen driver triumphed over his team-mate Dani Sordo with an advantage of 51 seconds. With his fifth win of the season the French driver extended his lead in drivers’ standings. He now has a lead of 58 points over Sebastien Ogier, which means that he can secure his seventh consecutive title in next month’s Japan Rally.

"A very good victory for me again - the eighth one in a row," said Loeb. "It's incredible, I really have a good feeling on this rally. I wouldn't like to be beaten here, and this time it's all okay again."

Returning to the factory team, Dani Sordo was very satisfied with his second pace, especially because he was running for the first time with his new co-driver Diego Vallejo. Sordo kept close to Loeb in the first stages until the world champion got off to a superb run on Saturday morning on the 48-kilometre Panzerplatte stage and built a safe advantage.

On his first event behind the wheel of the C4 WRC, Sebastien Ogier made a slow start but managed to overtake Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala to finish in third place.

Latvala secured fouth place in Germany, with Hirvonen retiring on Sunday due to transmission problems. Petter Solberg could have fought for a place in the podium had he not lost several minutes to two damaged tyres on Friday. During the weekend he won five stages and managed to fight back to fifth position.

The WRC will now head east to Sapporo where the Japanese Rally will take place on the 10-12 of September.