Citroen dominates WRC

The domination of Citroen and star driver Sebastien Loeb continues in the World Rally Championship

Motor racing round-up...

WRC
The domination of French driver Sebastien Loeb continues in the World Rally Championship as he drove his Citroen to yet another victory, this time in the Rally of Italy.

Ford's Mikko Hirvonen in the Focus took second ahead of Spain's Dani Sordo and Xavier Pons, both in Citroens.

The rally was dominated early by Ford's Marcus Gronholm before he crashed out on Stage Eight, handing the rally to Loeb.

Australia's Chris Atkinson went off the road midway through the final stage, forcing him out of the event. He was classified as 10th overall.

Australian GT Championship
Not such a a good weekend for Porsche in the Australian GT Championships at Philip Island. Ferrari and Chrysler shared the honours in a weekend where some typically changeable weather made for some fascinating racing and a spectacular crash in one of the support events.

Australian based Danish driver Allan Simonsen driving a Ferrari 360 GT won the weekend overall with a win, a fifth and a second in three entertaining races.

Sunday's second race saw the Australian debut win of the new Ferrari F430 Challenge car of John Teulan. Despite a lack of its homologated aerodynamic aids the new car was superb in the wet to lead the Porsche of Stuart Kostera.

Simonsen had led early but was slowed by a drive through penalty after officials judged that he had jumped the race restart after a safety car period.

The third race saw a win for popular local driver D'Arcy Russell in his Chrysler Viper ahead of Simonsen and David Stevens also in a new Ferrari F430 Challenge.

Despite a weekend that included two spins, series leader Greg Crick continues to lead from Porsche drivers Bryce Washington and James Koundouris.

Sunday also saw a lucky escape for Melbourne Sport Sedan driver Dean Randle. Randle was dicing for the lead in the third race of the Australian Sport Sedan series when his car came into contact with the Calibra/Chev V8 of Daniel Tamasi and Randle's fellow SAAB V8 driver Darren Hossack.

Coming out of the tight Honda hairpin the contact launched the SAAB into the air before barrel-rolling several times, leaving the car an unrecognisable mass of twisted metal. Amazingly Randle was well enough to remove himself from the wreck before angrily flinging his helmet and glove at a concerned Tamasi. He was taken to hospital complaining of a sore arm but X-Rays showed no break and he was later discharged.

British Formula 3 driver Ben Clucas won both races in the CAMS Gold Star for the Australian Drivers' Championship also at the Island. In a stunning drive Clucas recovered from a drive through penalty for jumping the start to win race one from Melbourne driver Michael Trimble by only .0039s, the closest finish in Australian Formula 3 Championship history. Another young Victorian, Tim Macrow was third.

Clucas again came from behind to pass both Trimble and Macrow to win by just over half a second in another close race.

After the win the Englishman, a former finalist in the prestigious Autosport McLaren Young Driver of the Year award said he wanted to stay in Australia and race V8 Supercars.

ALMS
Another significant moment in International Sportscar racing as Penske Racing's Porsche RS Spyders finished 1-2 overall in the American Le Mans at Mid-Ohio.

Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard captured their first series race win in the Penske Porsche, coming from the back of the field for a monumental LMP-2 Class and overall victory. Dumas went across the line 0.424 seconds ahead of Lucas Luhr in the sister car.

Dindo Capello and Allan McNish won in LMP1 for the third straight race of 2006. The Audi R8 finished third overall, the team now preparing for the 24 Hours of Le Mans and a return to the diesel-powered Audi R10 TDI that won at Sebring in March.

Meanwhile the famous R8 has one more race left in its competitive life, on July 1 at Lime Rock Park.

Olivier Beretta and Oliver Gavin in their Corvette won the GT1 Class for the eighth consecutive win in the Series.

In GT2, Flying Lizard Motorsports won in-class for the second time in three years at Mid-Ohio in its Porsche 911 GT3 RSR. Johannes van Overbeek and Wolf Henzler came back to win after an early off-track excursion, to beat the Panoz Esperante GTLM of David Brabham and Scott Maxwell.

MotoGP

There was disappointment for fans of champion Valentino Rossi at the French MotoGP, held at the famous Le Mans circuit over the weekend. Overcoming another poor qualifying performance Rossi stormed through the field to take the lead from surprise early leader, Suzuki's John Hopkins, who later crashed without serious injury.

But Rossi's great ride ended in disappointment when his Yamaha suffered an engine failure, leaving the Honda of Daniel Pedrosa in the lead but after choosing soft tyres he fell off the pace allowing Marco Melandri through to his second win of 2006.

Ducati rider Loris Caporosi also passed Pedrosa late in the race to relegate the young Honda rider to third. Australian rider Casey Stoner just held out championship leader Nicky Hayden to take fourth, with fellow Australian Chris Vermeulen.

Honda dominated the smaller categories with Yuki Takahashi leading home fellow Honda riders Andrea Dovizioso and Shuhei Aoyama in the 250s and Swiss rider Thomas Luthi, also on a Honda, beating the KTM of Mika Kallio and Fabrizio Lai on a Honda in the 125s

Citroen dominates WRC

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