Following a close-fought event in which the lead changed several times, Frenchman Sebastian Loeb (Citroen) emerged the victor at Rally Mexico over the weekend.

This is Loeb's second World Rally Championship round win this season and his third consecutive victory on Mexico's challenging gravel roads.

Subaru's Chris Atkinson delivered a career best result with second, the 28-year-old Australian managing to cement the podium finish during a tough final day.

Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala took an early lead following a gruelling first day, but the young Finn was pegged back in the second day of action. A crushed turbo pipe ultimately left him unable to reclaim the lost time and Latvala finished the three-day event in third.

"I'm delighted to have won here," beamed Loeb at the finish. "Following our blank scorecard in Sweden, it was important to try to bounce back straight away. It wasn't easy and, as often seems to be the case in Mexico, we had a troubled start, but the rest of the event went very well for us! It's the sort of victory I like because it came after a good fight."

Third after the first day, Atkinson slipped into second after leader Latvala dropped over a minute in the second leg, putting a Subaru on the podium for the second time this season.

"It's a fantastic result, my best in the WRC!" said Chris Atkinson. "All the team, the guys on my car, Subaru all did a top job. It's a great start to the year for me and also for the team, and I hope we can keep building on this."

Set in the mountainous terrain north of Mexico City, the hot and dusty conditions during the weekend drew large crowds to the cacti region at oxygen thin altitudes topping 2700 metres above sea level. Using loops of stages that returned to host city León, the final run of the super special stage confirmed the final placings that included five Fords in the top-seven places.

The first gravel event of the 2008 season, the weekend results illustrated the contenders likely to feature in New Zealand's own WRC event to be held in late August, the 11th of 15 rounds in the championship.

Still leading the championship standings, Ford's Mikko Hirvonen is now just one point ahead of Loeb, whose Mexican win gave him 38 WRC rally wins..

With three weeks until the next WRC round, teams head due south to Argentina for the second gravel event of the season, Rally Argentina (27-30 March).