Victory Snatched Away By Three Tenths Of A Second

Victory Snatched Away By Three Tenths Of A Second!

In the closest finish ever in a World Rally Championship event, Citroën's Sébastien Loeb had victory snatched away from him on the final stage of the event after three days and 353 kilometres of competitive stages by just three tens of a second when Marcus Grönholm took the final flag on the Rally of New Zealand at the weekend (31 August - 2 March 2007).

Grönholm took the lead on the first day of the Kiwi round of the World Rally Championship when the Frenchman made a poor tyre choice, but after a lunchtime tyre swap, Loeb started his fight back, nibbling into the Finn's lead until he took over the top spot.

Loeb and Grönholm then spent two days in a titanic battle, with the two drivers swapping tens of a second and the event lead on each stage.

The last leg of the southern hemisphere event took crews to the magnificent backdrop of the Raglan region by the Tasmanian Sea coast. The programme of the final day featured 93km of competitive action divided into two identical loops of three stages - including the classic Whaanga Coast test ­before ending with a final visit to the Mystery Creek super-special which turned out to be decisive.

The likelihood that conditions would dry after overnight rain and the forecast of more showers to come by the experts from Météo France Sports, one of Citroën Sport's technical partners, turned the last day into a nightmare as far as tyre choices were concerned.

Running on the same soft compound BFGoodrich tyres as Marcus Grönholm, Sébastien and Daniel went into the morning's loop with a slender 1.7-second lead, but the Citroën pair succeeded in extending their cushion to 2.9s by the remote service halt in Raglan.

"I didn't get off to the best of starts," admitted Seb. "There was absolutely no grip on the first stage (SS12) and I didn't manage to find the ideal pace. Marcus passed ahead by a tenth of a second but the rest of the morning went better for us. My Citroën C4 WRC was very competitive and enabled me to push harder on SS13 and SS14 which I won to regain the lead The gap was less than three seconds, however, and the final loop promised to be extremely close."

That prediction was especially true inasmuch as the tyre choice for the final stages was once again very complex. In the end, the Citroën pair opted for a slightly harder compound than their rival and Sébastien went into the afternoon's loop split between the wish to hold on to his lead and the desire not to make any mistakes.

"We managed to stay level with Marcus in many places, but we dropped time on each test," observed Seb. "On top of that, rain started to fall just as we were about to start two of the stages. That's rallying. I pushed as hard as I could but it was always at the back of my mind that eight points for finishing second would be better than a blank scorecard in terms of the fight for the Drivers' title."

Going into the super-special which ended the rally, Seb had a deficit of seven tenths of a second to make up. Encouraged by everyone at Citroën Sport who had come from the nearby service park to watch, Seb and Daniel put in a faultless run with their Citroën C4 but only managed to pull back four tenths of a second and ended the weekend three tenths behind the eventual winner.

"It rarely comes more frustrating than that! It was reassuring to see that we were able to challenge for victory throughout the rally, though, and that's very encouraging for the rest of the season," said Loeb at the finish.

"On paper," explained Guy Fréquelin, "this rally was always going to be tough for Citroën Sport. Sébastien and Daniel only did the recce for the 2006 event and hadn't previously contested many of the stages in anger. It was also the C4's maiden run in New Zealand and Dani had only done the event once before! We were expecting the weekend to be very stressful, but it turned out to be even more nerve-racking than I had imagined! Tyre choices were key from start to finish and, thanks to the input of everyone at Citroën Sport and also the impeccable support of our partner BFGoodrich, we opted for slightly different choices to those of our rival on several occasions and they often paid. Sébastien and Daniel put in a great performance. They only missed out on victory by a fraction of a second and they also had a little bad luck when they were the only ones to start SS15 and SS16 in rain. Dani Sordo continued to familiarise himself with this fast event which really does demand experience. He profited from the weekend to extend his understanding of the C4 and its different set­ups and that will be valuable later."

ENDS

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