The 2008 Rally Catalunya, officially 44è Rally RACC Catalunya - Costa Daurada, was the 44th

Rally Catalunya The Rally Catalunya (formerly: Rallye Catalunya) is a rally competition held in the Catalonia region of Spain, on the World Rally Championship The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is an international rallying series owned an ...

and the 12th round of the

2008 World Rally Championship season The 2008 World Rally Championship was the 36th season of the FIA World Rally Championship. The season consisted of 15 rallies and began on 24 January, with the 2008 Monte Carlo Rally. Frenchman Sébastien Loeb successfully retained the Drivers ...

. The rally took place during October 2–5, 2008 and consisted of 18 special stages. The rally was won by

Citroën Total World Rally Team Citroën ()The double-dot diacritic over the 'e' is a diaeresis () indicating the two vowels are sounded separately, and not as a diphthong. is a French automobile brand. The "Automobiles Citroën" manufacturing company was founded on 4 June 19 ...

Sébastien Loeb Sébastien Loeb (; born 26 February 1974) is a French professional rally, racing and rallycross driver. He is the most successful driver in the World Rally Championship (WRC), having won the world championship a record nine times in a row. He ho ...

ahead of his teammate

Dani Sordo Daniel "Dani" Sordo Castillo (born 2 May 1983) is a Spanish rally driver. He competes in the World Rally Championship for Hyundai Motorsport. He achieved his first WRC victory at the 2013 Rallye Deutschland. Career Sordo began in motocross whe ...

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

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

BP Ford World Rally Team The Ford World Rally Team, also known as the ''Ford Motor Co. Team'' prior to 2005, was Ford Motor Company's factory World Rally Championship team. It was a regular competitor in the series from the 1970s until withdrawing following the 2012 W ...

Mikko Hirvonen Mikko Hirvonen (born 31 July 1980) is a Finnish former rally driver, and a current Rally-Raid driver, who drove in the World Rally Championship. He placed third in the drivers' championship and helped Ford to the manufacturers' title in both 2 ...

and

François Duval François Duval (born 18 November 1980) is a Belgium, Belgian rally (sports), rally driver. Career 1999–2004 Francois Duval is the son of former rally driver Rene Duval. With victories in four events Duval won the Belgian Citroën Saxo Chal ...

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.

Subaru World Rally Team The Subaru World Rally Team (SWRT) was Subaru's World Rally Championship (WRC) team. It used a distinctive blue with yellow colour scheme that is a throwback to the sponsorship deal with State Express 555, a BAT cigarette brand popular in Asia. ...

Petter Solberg Petter Solberg (born 18 November 1974), nicknamed "Mr. Hollywood" is a Norwegian former professional rallying, rally and rallycross driver. Solberg debuted in the World Rally Championship in 1998 and was signed by the Ford World Rally Team, For ...

fought for fifth place with

Urmo Aava Urmo Aava (born 2 February 1979) is a former Estonian rally driver who competed in the World Rally Championship between 2002 and 2009. His regular co-driver was Kuldar Sikk, who later became Ott Tänak's co-driver. Career Urmo Aava spent five y ...

until the penultimate stage, when Aava retired after making a mistake and breaking his

Citroën C4 WRC The Citroën C4 WRC is a World Rally Car built for the Citroën World Rally Team by Citroën Racing to compete in the World Rally Championship. It is based upon the Citroën C4 road car and replaced the Citroën Xsara WRC. The car was introduced ...

's suspension. The battle for sixth place went down to the wire, with Stobart M-Sport Ford's

Jari-Matti Latvala Jari-Matti Latvala (; born 3 April 1985) is a Finnish rally driver who has competed in the World Rally Championship (WRC). His co-driver for most of his career was Miikka Anttila, who co-drove for Latvala between the 2003 Rallye Deutschland and ...

edging out Subaru's

Chris Atkinson Christopher James Atkinson (born 30 November 1979 in Bega, New South Wales, Australia) is a professional rally driver. In the World Rally Championship (WRC), Atkinson drove for the Subaru World Rally Team between 2004 and 2008. His best finis ...

by 1.1 seconds.

Andreas Mikkelsen Andreas Mikkelsen (born 22 June 1989) is a Norwegian rally driver. He is currently competing in the World Rally Championship for Hyundai Shell Mobis WRT. He previously drove for the factory teams of Volkswagen and Citroën, finishing third in th ...

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

Results

Championship standings after the event

Drivers' championship

Manufacturers' championship

External links

Standings at eWRC
{{Rally Catalunya

Catalunya Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

2008 2008 was designated as: *International Year of Languages *International Year of Planet Earth *International Year of the Potato *International Year of Sanitation The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued throu ...

Catalunya Rally Sport in the Province of Tarragona 2008 in Catalan sport