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Potential for Loeb to win seventh WRC title in Japan

The 2010 FIA World Rally Championship heads to Japan for the tenth of this year’s 13 rounds, running from 10 to 12 September with top competitors facing the possibility that six-time WRC champion Sébastien Loeb may secure his seventh drivers’ championship title.

Loeb needs to win Rally Japan with his Citroen team-mate and fellow Frenchman Sebastién Ogier finishing no better than sixth to ensure the record-breaking seventh WRC title. Loeb currently has 191 points, 58 more than Ogier. If Ogier, Jari-Matti Latvala, Petter Solberg and Dani Sordo all finish lower than seventh and Loeb wins, he is the champion. The 75 points on offer from the Rally of France, Catalunya Rally and Rally Great Britain will not be enough for anybody to catch him.

However if the BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team can repeat their last two victories at Rally Japan in 2007 and 2008, things won’t be going all Citroen’s way. The Japanese event didn’t run in 2009, as per the FIA event rotation policy, so with the Ford team back on their preferred surface – gravel – they’ll be drawing on their recent successes to inspire themselves in Japan, having won two of the last three loose-surface rallies with their Ford Focus RS World Rally Car. 

Loeb is playing down his chances of securing the championship in Japan, as he did in 2005 and 2008, but has admitted he’ll drive with the championship in mind, saying: “It would be stupid to come this far and then throw it away chasing more rally wins. I have to be sensible, try to win [the title] and then see afterwards. But before that happens there’s still a lot of ground to cover. Like all the rounds of the World Rally Championship, Rally Japan has its particularities. To be quite honest, I can’t say it’s one of my favourite events. The stages aren’t all that exciting and the fact that they’re very narrow doesn’t really encourage you to let rip behind the steering wheel!”

While Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen is now out of the running for this year’s drivers’ title, Latvala is looking forward to his fourth start in the event which is based in Sapporo, Japan’s fifth-largest city on Hokkaido, the country’s most northern island.

Latvala finished second in 2008, behind Hirvonen and says he’s keen to fight for a podium again this year. “The stages are fast and although there are trees close to the road, visibility through the corners is good and the speeds remain high,” says the winner of Rally New Zealand and Finland in 2010. “I prefer fast, flowing rallies like New Zealand and Finland. Japan is another rally of that nature although the roads are narrower here. My confidence is highest on that type of road and I want to fight for a podium. I had good speed when I won in Finland in July and the Focus RS WRC is competitive in those conditions so I'm confident a top three finish is possible.”

For this event, Citroen has entered Ogier in the main World Rally Team with Loeb, while Dani Sordo, who’s currently fifth overall, drives in the Citroen Junior Team with former Formula 1 champ Kimi Räikkönen for the last few gravel rounds of the 2010 season. Sordo is determined to get stuck into the battle with the frontrunners. “I’m going to be giving my all to show that I can drive just as quickly on gravel as I can on asphalt,” said the Spaniard.

Räikkönen is expecting it to be a very tricky event. “From what I’ve heard, the Rally Japan is particularly complex. And it’s sure to be even more complicated for a beginner like me.”

Holding fourth in the drivers’ standings, Petter Solberg with his privately-entered Citroen C4 is also looking forward to the Japanese event. “Both stages and surface are quite special here in Japan. The roads are narrow with soft gravel, but long straights still makes this a quite fast rally. Japan is one of my absolute favourites. The atmosphere is quite unique, and I really appreciate all the support we have from Japanese fans. We did a small test on Monday, and I have a good feeling with both the car and the rally.”

Stobart M-Sport Ford Rally Team drivers Matthew Wilson and Henning Solberg believe they can go on the attack at Rally Japan and aim for their best results so far in the FIA World Rally Championship 2010.

Wilson is aiming for a top five finish, having finished fourth in Japan in 2007. Solberg also has a strong track record in Japan, claiming third overall after an impressive drive on his first attempt at the event in 2007.

The Ford WRC camp also sees the return of Munchi’s Ford World Rally Team driver Federico Villagra.

Seventy-one crews have entered Rally Japan, which also counts towards the Super 2000 World Rally Championship
(SWRC) and the Production car World Rally Championship (PWRC), a field that features New Zealand’s own Hayden Paddon and John Kennard, who contest the Japanese event for the first time.

Paddon is currently third in the PWRC category and is gunning for maximise points from the Japanese event to give him top-equal points in his first attempt at the global WRC feeder series.

“Hopefully the stages will suit my driving style and we can have a good attack in there. It’s great to be back with Team Green - a repeat of the win in Auckland would be pretty awesome for me. But, I realise this is an event which a few of the guys have done before and will have more experience than me,” Paddon was quoted as saying on wrc.com.


Rally Japan is the biggest motorsport event in Japan, with more than 540,000 fans attending in 2008. The Sapporo Dome, a modern baseball and soccer stadium with capacity for 43,000 people that hosted the 2002 World Cup, host a spectacular indoor super special stage on each day of the rally. The route for days one and two take competitors to the south of rally HQ at the Sapporo Dome with day three’s stages to the north-east with a total of 303.54 competitive kilometres.

The bulk of the competition is based on undulating, medium to fast gravel forest tracks. A strong likelihood of rain could make the roads slippery and muddy, so the soft compound Pirelli Scorpion controlled tyre has been supplied to all four-wheel-drive crews taking into account the anticipated cooler temperatures and potential for rain and damp conditions on narrow loose gravel stages.

After Japan, WRC competitors have France (1-3 October), Spain (22-24 October) and Wales Rally GB (11-14 November) left to complete in 2010.

FIA World Rally Championship for Drivers (after Rallye Deutschland)
1, Sébastien Loeb, 191 pts
2, Sébastien Ogier, 133 pts
3, Jari-Matti Latvala, 117 pts
4, Petter Solberg, 100 pts
5, Dani Sordo, 95 pts

FIA World Rally Championship for Manufacturers (after Rallye Deutschland)
1, Citroen Total, 308 pts
2, BP Ford Abu Dhabi, 222 pts
3, Citroen Junior, 168 pts
4, Stobart M-Sport Ford, 118 pts
5, Munchi's Ford, 40pts

FIA Production World Rally Championship for Drivers (after Rallye Deutschland)
1, Armindo Araújo (PRT) Mitsubishi, 83 pts
2, Patrik Flodin (SWE) Subaru, 65 pts
3, Hayden Paddon (NZL) Mitsubishi, 58 pts
4, Toshi Arai (JPN) Subaru, 38 pts
5, Ott Tänak (EST) Mitsubishi, 35 pts