Loeb sets another record in Germany
Sebastien Loeb's astonishing eighth win on Rallye Deutschland last weekend was yet another landmark for the most successful driver in the history of the World Rally Championship.
He's not the first driver to call one event his own though. The Castrol Rankings decided to have a look back at some of the greats from the last 37 years.
Sebastien Loeb: 8 wins in Germany
Never has a driver been so dominant on one WRC event as Loeb has on Rallye Deutschland. It's not just that he's won it eight times; he's won it eight times in a row!
The hardest-fought came in 2003 when the Frenchman took his Xsara WRC to a 3.6-second win over Marcus Gronholm's Peugeot - the car acknowledged to be the benchmark on asphalt at the time.
With the Xsara's replacement, the C4, now the ultimate asphalt machine, Loeb has had a pretty easy time of it of late on the Trier-based rally. Next year, with the new DS3, could be a different story altogether.
Marcus Gronholm: 7 wins in Finland
This was the record that Loeb broke last weekend, and one that had only actually stood for three years.
The two-time world champion racked up seven wins on his home event in double-quick time. But for a lost wheel during the 2003 event, he may even have gone undefeated during his time with Peugeot, but he made up for it by taking two more victories after switching to Ford.
His best win came in 2004 (right) as he took the maiden victory for the heavy and troublesome Peugeot 307 WRC.
He and his team-mate Harri Rovanpera led the way to begin with, but once the latter had crashed out, Gronholm had things all his own way and won by 45s from Markko Martin's Ford, despite losing two gears during fearsome Ouninpohja stage.
Didier Auriol: 6 wins in France
The 1994 world champion won 20 WRC events during his career, but his 1988 victory on the Tour de Corse was by far the least expected.
Driving a Sierra Cosworth (right), the then 29-year-old Frenchman gave Ford its first WRC win for seven years. There would be no more for another five.
But while Ford remained in limbo, the career of Auriol took off into the stratosphere, and Corsica was central to it.
Three wins in the Lancia Delta Integrale and two more in successive versions of the Toyota Celica GT4 made him the undisputed king of the island.
His final win there in 1995, was a fortuitous one as Bruno Thiry's Ford, which had dominated the event, broke down on a road section on the final afternoon.
Bernard Darniche: 5 wins in France
Before Auriol, there was Bernard Darniche. A decent driver on gravel, but the best in the world on asphalt during the 1970s.
Darniche actually won the Tour de Corse six times, but his maiden success in 1970 came before the World Rally Championship had been created.
Two wins in Fiat 131s and three at the wheel of a Lancia Stratos (right) cemented his status in history. In 1981 he became the first man to win the same WRC event five times. That record would stand for 14 years.
Colin McRae: 5 wins in Greece
What can you say about the late Colin McRae that has not already been said? The man that brought rallying to the masses via his video game franchise also enchanted fans with his flat-out style and massive crashes.
It is quite odd then that the event on which he gained most success was not one of the flat-out blast through the forests, but the car-breaking Acroplois Rally.
He was already a world champion by the time he first conquered the Greek event in a Subaru Impreza 555 in 1996. A victory in its replacement, the Impreza WRC, followed, before three more wins For Ford. After his 2002 victory (right) he would win just one more WRC event.
Markku Alen: 5 wins in Portugal
The man who coined the phrase 'maximum attack' certainly had the right idea in Portugal, winning the event five times during its heyday as a mixed surface rally in the 1970s and '80s.
In fact, it was also the event on which he scored his maiden WRC success at the wheel of a Fiat 124 Abarth in 1975.
Three more successes followed in the 124's successor, the 131 (right), while his last victory on one of the WRC's classic events also came in an Italian machine, the Lancia Delta HF, in 1988.
Four other drivers have matched the achievement of winning a WRC event five times. Unsurprisingly Loeb is among them, having won the Monte Carlo and Argentina rallies on that many occasions.
Among them too are Shekhar Mehta; a five-time winner of the Safari Rally in Kenya, Stig Blomqvist; who took Swedish Rally honour five times during its WRC stint, and Gronholm, who has achieved the feat in both Sweden and New Zealand.
