Loeb takes second Irish win.

Triple World Rally champion, Sebastien Loeb dominated the Cork International Rally last weekend, winning virtually all the stages en-route to a convincing victory in his Citroen C4 WRC.

Loeb and Citroen had opted to do the event as part of their preparations for the inaugural Rally Ireland next month and like on the Donegal Rally back In June, Seb once again came out top.

With conditions pretty much dry for the entire event, with the exception of the shakedown and the first few stages on Saturday's morning loop, which were still damp following the previous day's rain, Seb was able to attack from the off and he eventually won by more than two minutes.

"In addition to winning the most important thing about the weekend was the fact that it enabled us to do some excellent preparatory work in a competitive context," explained Loeb.

"Thanks to our experience in Donegal, we had a fairly shrewd idea of what we would find here, although I must say I was once again surprised by how difficult the stages were. It really wasn't easy to make good notes with just two passes during recce.

"All-in-all the weekend gave us a valuable opportunity to test with Citroen Sport's engineers and technicians for Ireland's WRC round which will be based in Sligo.

"The stages we contested here on Saturday were apparently similar to what we can expect in the north, so it was very worthwhile coming to Cork.

"The rally also enabled us to work on certain points and validate our previous work in other areas. We have kept some set ups, rejected others and also evaluated certain new ideas."

Seb's team-mate Daniel Sordo meanwhile was also in action on the event and he finished second - although he was using the Xsara as opposed to this year's C4. Despite opting for a slightly slower pace though, the Spaniard did more than enough to take the runners-up spot and eventually finished 2.5 minutes up on Mark Higgins, who was third.

"As soon as we started recce I realised what a good idea it had been to come and do this event," said Dani, who was competing in Ireland for the very first time. "The stages were very fast but it's the fact that they're so narrow and bumpy that makes them such a challenge.

"It wasn't easy to make good pace-notes and we occasionally found the car jumping in places where we hadn't expected it to! It is really very different from anything else I know.

"More than our actual performance we concentrated above all on getting a feel for the terrain.

"I hope the experience and the lessons we go away with will be profitable. I was also able to evaluate the different set-ups that we should be able to use. Last but not least, I was really impressed by the huge popular following rallying enjoys in this country. That was terrific to see."

Of the rest, now four-time Irish tarmac champion, Eugene Donnelly came in fourth, while Mikko Hirvonen was fifth in his BP Ford Focus RS WRC, more than 7 minutes off Loeb.

Loeb, Sordo and Hirvonen now turn their attentions back to the WRC more specifically - and this weekend's Rally de Espana, which gets underway on Friday and is also an asphalt event.