Citroen’s Sebastien Loeb suffered a costly puncture as he started his bid for an eighth successive world rally championship in the snowy Swedish season opener on Friday.
The Frenchman, with a new DS3 car this season, ended the first day in ninth place overall and a hefty 2 minutes 48.4 seconds behind Norwegian pace-setter Mads Ostberg in a Ford Fiesta.
Ostberg won two of the day’s stages and led Ford’s Finnish works driver Mikko Hirvonen by 14.8 seconds, with Norway’s former world champion Petter Solberg third.
PHOTO: EPA
Finland’s Jari-Matti Latvala, also in a works Ford, won the last stage of the day in temperatures of minus 13oC to take fourth place overnight.
Loeb limped through nearly three-quarters of the 19.26km seventh Lovhaugen 2 stage with a puncture to his front left tyre.
“I don’t know why it happened, because I was in the middle of the road,” the champion told the wrc.com Web site. “I did not touch anything, but I had to do 15km like that.”
Ostberg had problems seeing the road clearly when his driving lights were dislodged, which saw his lead slashed from 32 seconds to 14, while Solberg was troubled by a misted windscreen.
“There was a big dip in the road, and the lightpods came off,” Ostberg told reporters. “It’s been a nightmare, no lights and the thing that’s supposed to give you light is blocking your view. I tried pushing, but I couldn’t see a damn thing.
“I wouldn’t have believed I would be leading at all, so I must say it’s been a good day,” he added.
The world rally championship, contested over 13 rounds, has introduced major changes this year with a new generation of smaller, lighter and less complicated cars designed to be cheaper to maintain and race, while still extremely fast.
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