A concealed tree stomp hiding under the surface of gravel sand might have cost the championship for Citroen team on stage 4; Seb hit the tree stomp on a right-hander immediately breaking off his right front suspension. None of Citroen team had the tree stomp on their notes. It was pretty unusual for his perfect rally driving and the second retirements in this current 2009 WRC year. Fortunately to the advantage of Ford team getting more WRC championship points, and it would be maximal point scores should both Ford’s drivers get the top podium results.
After the demise of Seb, Mikko extended the lead over his team mate at second position where as Danni Sordo had a hard time chasing them off at third. Much of Poland stages were characterized by very narrow gravel road and Danni had pushed his Citroen C4 into blistering 170 km/h. Yet at end of the day one Mikko was still on the top position, it was the second position battle that got much attention. And Jarri assumed the keeper’s role of curbing Danni Sordo, on some stages Jarri had to shorten his gap to the Ford number one to a mere 3.9 seconds.
Seb rejoined the race under super rally car regulation with 20 minutes time penalty on the following day, he was adamant safeguarding his team’s score by quickly establishing into 10th position. Meanwhile later on the day Danni gained confidence chasing both Ford drivers, as his C4 Citroen showed good performance he shortened the gap to Jarri’s to 16 seconds. The final stages on day two saw the alarmed Ford drivers to further press their pace harder keeping Danni further behind.
Stage 11 also saw another fierce battle between Ogier and Henning for the fourth position; Ogier had shown consistent performance by scoring the fastest rally driving on some stages. Alas he had to retire on the third day and thus allowing Seb a nice 9th position rank.
The final stages on the third day marked a very disappointing result for Malcolm as Jarri hit a barrel on a right hander breaking off his steering arm, very costly loss for Ford as the number two driver missed the podium only a few hundreds meters prior to finish line. This is quite a bizarre incident as another Citroen Junior team allowed Seb into the 8th position and Ford’s 2nd position loss had turned Citroen team maintaining a more comfortable gap on championship points.
Despite of his worst luck ever, Seb still had managed a precious point on this Poland event. A very contrasting luck indeed to the era of Marcus Gronholm either as the driver to Ford or Peugeot team, he had never got the chance to match Seb’s incredible successful rally driving. As a matter of fact so did Petter Solberg who enjoyed more fans everywhere yet his 3 years old Citroen Xsara was 30 hp lagging behind.
Would you believe a rally driver champion was born? Time did and could tell but wait for rally driving of Finland the home turf for Sebastian Loeb’s rivals. Just in case if his luck turns against him! Remember the old proverbs saying; No. 13 is bad luck yet a cat has 9 lives….WRC round #9
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