Loeb maintains perfect start to season for Citroën

Sebastian Loeb's perfect start to the 2004 World Championship season continued with a win in Sweden yesterday.

The Frenchman completed the 19-stage Rally Sweden in three hours, 26 minutes and 17.7 seconds to become the event's first non-Nordic winner. His Citroën finished 46.4sec ahead of Finland's Marcus Gronholm in a Peugeot.

Loeb also won the Monte Carlo Rally a fortnight ago and now has a commanding lead after the first two events of the season. Here he did all that was required to maintain his overnight lead. Gronholm won three of the day's six stages, but still lost 5.8secs to Loeb.

Third place went to Petter Solberg, of Norway, who maintained his overnight ranking. The top five remained the same throughout the day, with Finland's Janne Tuohino in fourth, ahead of Spain's Carlos Sainz andNorway's Henning Solberg.