Fuente: © Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA)
http://www.fia.com/

FORMULA 1: News Bulletin - Day 1

/noticias.info/ After close-fought competition, which ultimately ended in tactical play, Sébastien Loeb (Citroën Total) leads the Rally of Turkey, round eight of the FIA World Rally Championship. No fewer than three drivers have headed the leaderboard throughout the day and the top five crews are split by less than seven seconds at the end of the first day. Behind Loeb, Henning Solberg (Stobart Ford) holds second position, with Jari-Matti Latvala (BP Ford) just one-tenth of a second adrift in third.



Turkey is the third hot weather and rough gravel rally in just five weeks and is another of the toughest rounds of the series, despite slightly cooler and smoother conditions than the gruelling Acropolis Rally two weeks ago. The event started last night with a super special stage in Antalya, won by Sébastien Loeb, but today the route took the crews into the Anatolian mountains for eight stages and 152 competitive kilometres.



Loeb has had the unenviable task of sweeping the roads clean of gravel today and while the Frenchman lost time to his rivals, he had climbed from seventh to third, despite only one fastest stage time. He was fourth going into the last stage, but when the Ford drivers slowed to ensure they weren’t first on the road tomorrow, Loeb took the lead and will be faced with the same conditions tomorrow. Henning Solberg ran as high as fourth, before he too catapulted up the leaderboard during the final stage. He is just one second behind Loeb. Latvala briefly led earlier in the day, but has suffered two punctures. Slowing in the final stage, the Finn dropped from second to third in the hope of also benefiting from a better road position tomorrow.



Gigi Galli (Stobart Ford) is right behind him, in fourth, the Italian winning three of the day’s stages to overnight 2.2 seconds off the lead. Mikko Hirvonen (BP Ford) has led for most of the day and he too dropped time in the final stage, leaving him fifth and only 6.8 seconds behind Loeb. Sixth and seventh are held by Petter Solberg (Subaru) and Britain’s Matthew Wilson (Stobart Ford) respectively, and Dani Sordo (Citroën Total) is eighth, having dropped from fifth with rear suspension damage.



The leading retirement of the day was Chris Atkinson (Subaru), who was forced out with suspension damage.



Rally of Turkey - Results after Day 1



1 Sébastien Loeb/Daniel Elena Citroën C4 WRC 2 hr 02 min 35.2sec
2 Henning Solberg/Cato Menkerud Ford Focus RS WRC 2 hr 02 min 36.2sec
3 Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Anttila Ford Focus RS WRC 2 hr 02 min 36.3sec
4 Gigi Galli/Giovanni Bernacchini Ford Focus RS WRC 2 hr 02 min 37.4sec
5 Mikko Hirvonen/Jarmo Lehtinen Ford Focus RS WRC 2 hr 02 min 42.0sec
6 Petter Solberg/Phil Mills Subaru Impreza WRC 2008 2 hr 03 min 24.3sec
7 Matthew Wilson/Scott Martin Ford Focus RS WRC 2 hr 03 min 41.1sec
8 Dani Sordo/Marc Marti Citroën C4 WRC 2 hr 03 min 42.0sec notas_de_prensa_archivo