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| - Nine-time champion Sebastien Loeb rolled back the years to lead the Turkey Rally in Marmaris on Friday after the first two special stages of the fifth round of the world championship. The 46-year-old Frenchman, driving for Hyundai, won the second of the stages and is a second ahead of his Hyundai teammate Thierry Neuville who won the opener. A further 1.3 seconds back lies Sebastien Ogier (Toyota) who won here last year and currently leads the World Rally Championship standings. Loeb has not raced in the WRC since his coming in sixth in the Monte Carlo Rally in January. The intervention of the coronavirus and the part-time nature of his contract means he missed the rounds in Sweden, Mexico and Estonia. "I wasn't expecting to be leading tonight, it is very nice. I tried to go fast even in the dust, my notes were really precise," tweeted Loeb. The leader of the Hyundai team and reigning world champion, Ott Tanak, who won the last rally in his native Slovenia, was off the pace, in these two short stages coming in seventh just under five seconds behind Loeb. "I was not ready to take risks so early in the rally, it's a long race," said the Estonian who complained about the dust kicked up by the wheels of the car in front. Two passages in a loop of three specials are planned for Saturday during the second day, on rocky and very brittle roads in the hills and mountains above Marmaris, a seaside resort in south-western Turkey. dlo/bsp/td
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