Cork 20 Rally

01st October 2007

As the start of the Cork 20 Rally drew nearer, excitement was building. The Citroen team would be headed up by Sebastien Leob, Mikko Hirvonen was the only BP Ford entry while Dani Sordo, team mate of Loeb was also ready to go.

But as well as being a warm-up for Rally Ireland, there was an Irish Tarmac Championship to win with Eugene (Genie) Donnelly and Mark Higgins set to go head to head over the 14 stages of the event.

The WRC regulars were not eligible for Irish tarmac points. This meant that all Donnelly had to do was finish within three places of Higgins and he would seal back-to-back Irish tarmac championships.

As the rally got underway, the reigning world champion Loeb showed the rest of the field who was boss as he made the Citroen C4 dance through the tight and twisty Irish lanes.

Leg One
Right from the off it was Sebastien Loeb who set the pace beating teammate Dani Sordo – driving a Xsara - by 12 seconds.

Mikko Hirvonen was a further 23 seconds adrift. Loeb came in saying that he was happy but the stage was very slippy.

Moving across to the Irish Tarmac Championship - first blood went to the 'Genie', he lay in fourth overall 30 seconds behind Loeb but more importantly one second up on Mark Higgins.

Loeb was fastest on stage two, 11 seconds up on Sordo with Higgins a further three behind. Mikko Hirvonen had an awful second stage as his BP Ford Focus picked up a puncture losing 4minutes 30 seconds to rally leader Loeb as the young Finn changed the wheel in the stage. "It's such a shame that we got a puncture but we are here to test the car for Rally Ireland and we must get all the data we need", Hirvonnen told Auto Express.

Stages three and four were a repeat of the first two and again it was the flying Frenchman who was setting the pace. Loeb took 20 seconds out of Sordo on the second loop, while Hirvonen set third quickest time on four only 13 seconds behind Loeb.

Stage four saw Higgins lose 40 seconds, letting the Irishman leapfrog him in the overall standings making his defence of the championship much stronger.

Halfway through Leg One, Loeb was flying and there was to be no let up on stage five and six. Again the French genius set brilliant times and took another six seconds from Sordo.

The battle between Higgins and the 'Genie' was hotting up and after six there was only eight seconds in it. If the standings stayed like this Donnelly would be crowned as champion but there was a lot of mileage still to be tackled.

Stage seven and eight saw the same picture at the top of the leaderboard - he again set fastest times on the last two tests of day one.

Loeb told Auto Express: "Today was good, we played with different suspension settings and the feeling in the car is good."

So the overall leaderboard looked like this after day one:

Sebastein Loeb
1.15.43.0

Dani Sordo
+1m29

Mark Higgins
+4m01

Eugene Donnelly
+4m06

Eamonn Boland
+6m26s

Mikko Hirvonen
+6m39

Tim McNulty
+6m39

Leg Two
It was more of the same as day two began with Sebastien setting the pace. But the Citroen C4 had a small war wound - a grazed door showed that Loeb had been trying a bit too hard on stage nine.

Sordo was 10 seconds slower than Loeb on nine and lost another 10 seconds on stage 10 as Loeb beat the bogey time. Sordo complained that the sun hampered his run as he had to shield his eyes with his hand at times.

In the Irish tarmac fight Higgins was doing his utmost, and he was quicker than Donnelly on both nine and stage 10.

Stage 11 and 12 saw Loeb again put in a masterclass.

With two stages of the rally left, the winner had been settled after the first stage, Loeb was in a different league to the rest of the field. It was an amazing performance and the ultimate warm-up for Loeb and the Citroen world rally team in preparation for Rally Ireland.

The other major issue was the battle between Donnelly and Higgins. In the end Higgins finished fourth overall, but it was back-to-back titles for Donnelly.

Final leaderboard:

Sebastien Loeb/Daniel Elena
C4 WRC
2.02.09.5

Dani Sordo/Mark Marti
Xsara WRC
2.04.31.0

Mark Higgins/Rory Kennedy
Impreza WRC
2.07.09.3

Eugene Donnelly/Paul Kiely
Impreza WRC
2.07.52.7

Mikko Hirvonen/Jarmo Lehtinen
Focus WRC
2.09.38.5

Thanks to Irish Ferries and Discover Ireland, for supporting our coverage of this event.