Banbury's Subaru World Rally Team driver Stephane Sarrazin picked up the final point for Subaru with eighth place in the Rally of Corsica.

Defending champion Sebastien Loeb continued his dominance of the World Rally Championship series with a victory on home terrain.

Kronos Total Citroen driver Loeb won the Rally of Corsica for the second year running to extend his points advantage in the table to 11 points over the BP Ford of Finland's Marcus Gronholm.

Frenchman Loeb took his tally of WRC wins to 23 after winning by 27 seconds over Gronholm, with Spain's Dani Sordo making it two Citroens in the top three by filling the final step of the podium.

Sarrazin's Subaru team-mate Petter Solberg's hopes of cutting Loeb's lead in the championship standings ended on Friday after the Norwegian's Subaru went off the track during the first stage. The former champion, now 36 points behind Loeb, ended the rally more than six minutes off the pace in 11th place.

Loeb led by 40 seconds going into the final day after dominating the first two days and was able to respond every time Gronholm made a move.

Gronholm was using the event to test a set-up for later tarmac events later this season and was pleased with second place.

He said: "Second place is a good, solid result and while a driver is never totally happy with second, I am pleased with the eight points it brings.

"I didn't have the chance to win here against Loeb. I think I can beat him on asphalt but I just don't know where or when."

The battle for third place kept interest in the event alive as Ford's Mikko Hirvonen and Sordo fought all the way.

The Spaniard began the day with under a five-second lead over the Finn, but the gap was closed right down until Sordo was able to pull away towards the end of the rally.

Hirvonen eventually settled for fourth, with France's Alex Bengue fifth in a Peugeot 307 and Spain's Xavier Pons was sixth in the third Citroen.

Hirvonen said: "I enjoyed the fight with Dani. Third would have been great but I'm lucky not to be halfway down a mountain.

"About 8.5km after the start of the last stage I slid wide in a corner onto some gravel, the car was totally off the road and I thought we would tumble over the edge. I eased off after that."

Austria's Manfred Stohl was seventh in the second Bozian-prepared Peugeot 307 WRC.