Gronholm out as Loeb a minute clear

Sebastien Loeb maintained his stranglehold on the Tour of Corsica by winning today’s opening stage as Marcus Gronholm’s challenge fell apart.

World champion Loeb has dominated his home event, winning all four stages yesterday before continuing that run this morning.

The Citroen driver outpaced Ford’s Toni Gardemeister on stage five to extend his lead to over a minute.

Gardemeister’s continued good form saw him leapfrog Loeb’s team-mate Francois Duval for second place this morning, although he is still one minute and 3.4 seconds away from the leader.

Citroen have manufacturers’ championship glory in their sights, despite Duval’s disappointing stage-five performance which saw the young Belgian lose almost half a minute to Gardemeister and dropped him to third.

Citroen hold a 22-point lead over rivals Peugeot in the manufacturers’ standings and, with only 36 on offer after this weekend’s rally, they can seal the title with two rallies remaining.

Their cause was helped by Gronholm’s retirement overnight. The Finn limped through the final stage yesterday with transmission problems but was forced to concede defeat and retire from fourth.

Peugeot boss Jean-Pierre Nicolas blamed Gronholm’s troubles on a new part.

He said: “The two Peugeots in Corsica were equipped for the first time this year with our double-clutch gearbox.

“This system would have gained us about 15 to 20 seconds over the course of the entire rally.

“Despite a long period of making this unit reliable, Marcus’ gearbox became blocked on the fourth and final stage of the day and he was forced to retire. It was a bitter blow.”

Gronholm’s retirement lifted Petter Solberg up to fourth place, one ahead of his Subaru team-mate Stephane Sarrazin.

The Ford duo of Daniel Sola and Roman Kresta are sixth and seventh respectively while Skoda’s Alex Bengue completed the top eight.

In the junior championship, Northern Ireland’s Kris Meeke saw his title hopes effectively end with a disastrous first stage today.

The Citroen driver trails championship leader Daniel Sordo by six points but looks likely to concede more ground after losing 14 minutes this morning to slip to ninth. Sordo leads and will amass an unassailable lead if he can take the win.