(Reuters) – France’s Sebastien Loeb won the season-opening Monte Carlo Rally on Sunday to become, at 47, the oldest driver to win a round of the world championship.
The nine times world champion, driving for M-Sport Ford in his first rally since 2020, took a record-equalling eighth career Monte Carlo victory after late drama for closest rival Sebastien Ogier.
Compatriot Ogier, who has won the the world title and Monte Carlo eight times and is now competing part-time for Toyota, led overnight but suffered a puncture to his car’s front-left tyre on the penultimate stage.
Loeb’s new co-driver Isabelle Galmiche became the first woman to stand on top of a world rally championship podium since Italy’s Fabrizia Pons partnered winner Piero Liatti in Monte Carlo in 1997.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Gareth Jones)
