Citroen's
Sebastien Loeb has admitted that he was a bit surprised by Marcus Gronholm's pace this morning on day one of the Rallye de France-Tour de Corse.
Seb was beaten by the Finn in both SS2 and SS3 and while changes to his Citroen C4 WRC in the mid-day service had the desired effect, allowing the Frenchman to win all three stages in the afternoon and move up into the lead, Seb reckons that he and Gronholm are set for another 'really good fight'.
“We needed to push hard today," reflected Loeb, who finished the day 4.8 seconds up on Gronholm. "I felt more confident after the modifications we made to the set-up of my C4 after the morning's loop. I can attack a bit harder now.
"There was nothing strategic though. I just went as quickly as I could: I had no choice.
"Marcus's speed is a little bit of a surprise here in Corsica however. Okay, I know he can be fast in Spain, but he wasn't quite so fast here in the last two years.
"It's nice to be ahead this evening but victory is by no means in the bag yet. I think it's going to be another really good fight this weekend," added the triple world champion.
Citroen team boss, Guy Frequelin was pleased with the efforts of his number one driver. He now wants to see
Daniel Sordo close the gap to Gronholm and knock the Finn down to third. Sordo finished 13.7 seconds off Marcus.
"It was a fierce fight this afternoon. After fine-tuning the setup of their Citroen C4 WRC, Sebastien and Daniel put in a magnificent run over today's last three stages to bridge the gap and then pull out a small lead on which they will need to try to build tomorrow," continued Frequelin.
"After a promising start, Dani Sordo and Marc Marti didn't take the same tyres as Sebastien for the second loop. Their challenge tomorrow will be to try to catch Marcus Gronholm."
