Sebastien Loeb ended his final year of
full-time World Rally Championship competition by sealing his 76th career
victory with an eighth successive Rally of Spain triumph.Loeb was out of sorts
in Friday morning's downpours on the gravel stages, but was making progress up the
order even before hitting the asphalt on Saturday.Nearly 40 seconds off the
lead in fifth early on, by the rally's midway point Loeb's Citroen was leading
by 20s.That gap dwindled to just 7s at the finish as Jari-Matti Latvala put on
a late charge.In his Ford swansong, Latvala underlined his asphalt improvement
with second place and some strong stage times, particularly on the final
afternoon when he judged his tyre choices better than Loeb amid rain showers.Latvala
will surely ponder what he might have achieved with a stronger start - a poor
performance in Friday's mud leaving him nearly a minute off the lead before the
rally had barely begun.Mads Ostberg and Ott Tanak had been the heroes when the
weather was at its worst, fighting for the lead on Friday morning. While Tanak
then dropped back, Ostberg pulled away to lead by nearly half a minute heading into Saturday.A terrible Saturday ended the
Adapta Ford driver's hopes of a first on-the-road win however. Ostberg lost the
lead when he spun on leg two's second stage, then tumbled back to fifth amid
handling issues later in the day.Ostberg fought back on Sunday and closed to
within 9.6s of Mikko Hirvonen's third position. But Latvala's second place and
power stage win saw the Finn snatch third place in the championship away from
Ostberg - a major blow for the Norwegian as he chases a works Citroen seat for
2013. Tanak kept pushing for a podium finish until crashing out with just two
stages to go.He was the last major casualty of an incident-packed weekend. Petter
Solberg, Dani Sordo, Chris Atkinson, Thierry Neuville and Evgeny Novikov were
among a host of drivers who crashed on day one. All rejoined under Rally 2,
with Sordo the star as he took a sequence of stage wins once an engine problem
was rectified. Atkinson was highest up the final leaderboard, salvaging seventh
in Motorsport Italia's farewell as the factory Mini entrant. Sordo's Prodrive Mini team-mate
Jarkko Nikara had matched the Spaniard on Friday before a time-consuming
puncture. He drove carefully thereafter and emerged with a surprise fifth place
in his biggest WRC chance yet.Hans Weijs - another returnee making his
top-class debut - would have taken the place had he not rolled on the final
morning. A highly emotional Craig Breen followed up last year's WRC Academy win
by clinching the 2012 Super 2000 title with sixth overall, beating rival PG
Andersson. The result was a poignant end to the season in which Breen's
original co-driver Gareth Roberts lost his life.Benito Guerra came out on top
of the six-way championship fight in the Production class's swansong. Jose
Suarez won the Academy finale. (In Autsport.com)
Leading finishers after SS18:
1. Sebastien Loeb Citroen 4h14m29.1s 2. Jari-Matti Latvala Ford + 7.0s 3. Mikko Hirvonen Citroen + 1m46.8s 4. Mads
Ostberg Adapta Ford + 1m56.4s 5. Jarkko Nikara Prodrive Mini + 16m07.9s 6. Craig Breen Kel-Tech Ford + 18m10.4s 7. Chris Atkinson Italia Mini + 19m14.7s 8. PG Andersson Proton + 20m16.1s 9. Dani Sordo Prodrive Mini +
25m40.6s 10. Evgeny Novikov Autotek Ford + 25m46.6s
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