LLORET DE MAR, Spain, 25 October 2003 — Tarmac expert Sebastien Loeb collected a hat trick of wins to lead the Rally of Catalunya ahead of Citroen teammate Carlos Sainz after five stages yesterday.
The Frenchman, who won on asphalt in Monte Carlo, Germany and Sanremo this season, is 11 seconds in front of local favorite and world championship leader Sainz, who followed Loeb home in second place in three stages. Corsican rally winner Petter Solberg, who set a blistering pace in his Subaru to win the slippery first stage, suffered a double setback before dropping down to 10th place in the standings.
The Norwegian picked up a puncture on stage two and was handed a 50-second time penalty before the fourth stage for arriving five minutes late at a time control following a problem with his alternator.
Solberg is now one minute 29.5 seconds behind Loeb, although team boss David Lapworth is upbeat about his driver’s chances of making up the deficit.
Despite struggling with a neck injury after a crash in Corsica, Estonia’s Markko Martin produced a series of consistently fast runs in his Ford, including a victory on the short fifth stage to claim third place overall.
Former world champions Richard Burns and Colin McCrae also performed well on all five stages to lie fourth and sixth respectively, with Frenchman Gilles Panizzi sandwiched in between the two Britons.
