This was Citroën's third double win in a row, after previous one-two finishes in Germany and New Zealand.

BP Ford World Rally Team's Mikko Hirvonen and François Duval took comfortable third and fourth positions, although only battled with each other and never managed to challenge the Citroëns.

Duval eased off in one stage to let Hirvonen, who continued his fight for the drivers' title with Loeb, to take the third place and one extra point.

The battle for sixth place went down to the wire, with Stobart M-Sport Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala edging out Subaru's Chris Atkinson by 1.1 seconds.

Andreas Mikkelsen drove his privateer Ford Focus RS WRC 07 to eighth place, taking the second points finish of his career.