Although Marcus Gronholm set the pace at the start of Rally Catalunya, defending WRC champion Sébastien Loeb’s Kronos Citroën cruised to victory on Sunday after the Finn’s Ford Focus suffered a turbocharger wastegate failure.
Although Marcus Gronholm set the pace at the start of Rally Catalunya, defending WRC champion Sébastien Loeb’s Kronos Citroën cruised to victory on Sunday after the Finn’s Ford Focus suffered a turbocharger wastegate failure.
Loeb followed up his win in the Mexican Rally earlier this month by finishing 48 seconds ahead of second-placed Kronos Citroën team-mate, Daniel Sordo. Xavier Pons had been on pace for third – which would have resulted in all-Citroën podium – and was 35 seconds adrift of Sordo after SS9. But, on the next stage, Pons’ car slid off the road, rolled down a hill and was out of the rally.
“The early part of the rally was quite difficult and I really had to push hard to keep up with Gronholm,” Loeb said at the finish. “But when he was slowed by mechanical problems I was able to control from in front.”
Gronholm was blindingly quick on Sunday’s final leg, and the Finnish Ford Focus RS WRC 06 pilot set the fastest time on each of the final stages, finishing the event with 10 stage wins out of 16.
“I tried really hard, but (Alex) Bengue (in a privately-entered Peugeot 307 WRC) was pushing us,” Gronholm said. “It was hard to make an impact on those stages because they were so fast. After Friday’s problems, everything was perfect. I could have won without a small technical problem. I knew before the start I could be close to Loeb and the speed of the Focus RS was there for all to see.”
The wastegate failure to Gronholm’s Focus happened on SS5 while the Finn was leading the rally, and he lost two and a half minutes on Friday’s final two stages, dropping back to 10th place. However, Gronholm’s dogged comeback drive lifted him to third place and six championship points by the end of the event.
“I’m disappointed, of course, but also surprised because I had no problem like this in testing,” Gronholm said on Friday. “Everything was going so well and for the first time ever I was beating Sebastien on asphalt.”
Bengue took fourth, beating Skoda Fabia WRC drivers Jan Kopecky and Francois Duval, who finished fifth and sixth.
Petter Solberg had another disappointing race for Subaru, finishing in seventh place in the Impreza WRC 2006, and his French team-mate, Stephane Sarrazin, claimed the final championship point with an eighth-place finish.
“Spain has been a very tough rally for us,” Solberg admitted. “We had hoped to get more points, but instead we have had to work hard to get those we did get.”
The rally was marred by a fatal incident on Friday’s second stage. Jorg Bastuck, Aaron Burkart’s co-driver, had been changing a wheel after their car slid off the road, when Barry Clark’s Ford Fiesta went off at the same corner and struck the German.
Bastuck was quickly flown to the Joan XXIII Hospital in Tarragona, but all attempts at saving his life failed. As a gesture of respect, no podium ceremonies were held after the finish.
Loeb now leads the drivers’ championship with 36 points to Gronholm’s 27. Sordo, Manfred Stohl and Solberg are next, but well back, at 14, 11 and 10 points, respectively.