World Rally Champion Sebastian Loeb has extended his lead in the 2012 points standings with a comfortable victory in the Acropolis Rally despite a tyre puncture.
The Frenchman finished 40 seconds ahead of second placed Citroen teammate Mikko Hirvonen. Ford driver Jari-Matti Latvala completed the podium.
Loeb lost three minutes after having to change the tyres on his DS3 with three stages to go, but that didn’t hamper the winner of the past nine seasons.
The man who was the last to beat Loeb to a championship, Norweigian Petter Solberg, had an up and down event. A wrong tyre choice saw him fall back in the field before reeling Loeb back in. A crash on the first stage on Sunday ended his rally early.
The next round of the World Rally Championship will be in New Zealand on June 22-24.
1 S. LOEB 0.0
2 M. HIRVONEN +40.0
3 J. LATVALA +3:04.8
4 M. ØSTBERG +6:16.4
5 M. PROKOP +7:46.5
6 T. NEUVILLE +9:41.4
7 S. OGIER +12:59.9
8 Y. AL RAJHI +20:12.2
9 O. TÄNAK +23:18.9
10 A. ALKUWARI +28:40.5
Championship standings after 6 of 13 rounds:
Sebastien Loeb 119
Mikko Hirvonen 89
Mads Ostberg 80
Petter Solberg 73
Jari-Matti Latvala 45
Evgeny Novikov 43
Martin Prokop 36
Nasser Al-Attiyah 23
Sebastien Ogier 22
Thierry Neuville 22
