NO SURE THING; MIKKO HIRVONEN LEADS SEBASTIEN LOEB IN THE WRC POINTS.

Byline: ANTHONY PEACOCK

After Ford's World Rally Championship star Marcus Gronholm retired at the end of last year, pessimists predicted picking anyone other than Citroen driver Sebastien Loeb to win the 2008 championship would be like betting against the lion in gladiatorial combat. But the four-time world champion is second in the standings at the midseason mark, three points behind Ford's Mikko Hirvonen. Loeb won five of the first eight events, but the other three tell the story of the season.

Loeb has the misfortune of encountering banal twists of fate from time to time. In 2006, he broke his right arm in a mountain-bike accident, which nearly cost him the title. If he loses it this year, it might be thanks to an accident in his rally car.

Loeb had no way to know that as he led the Jordan Rally, the identical Citroen C4 of Conrad Rautenbach was coming the other way around a blind corner on a road section. The resulting collision meant that he was out on the spot. Loeb had another accident on the Swedish Rally but under far more conventional circumstances on a special stage. He finished third in the only other rally he did not win.

Nonetheless, those two retirementscoupled with Hirvonen's metronomic points-scoring run on every eventexplain why Loeb is second in points.

However, Jari-Matti Latvala, in third place, is the surprise of the year so far. Ford drafted Latvala, 22, as Gronholm's replacement, and he became the youngest-ever World Rally winner when he triumphed in Sweden. He has made mistakes but had the speed to win nearly all of the rallies, and the Finn could turn out to be the star of the season.

Subaru hoped its allnew ...