France's five-time world champion Sebastien Loeb won the Rally of Norway on Sunday, his second victory in two races this season.

The French Citroen C4 ace ? who was winning his 49th race in tandem with co-pilot Daniel Elena ? won the second leg of the 12-race series ahead of Finnish driver Mikko Hirvonen and another Finn Jari-Matti Latvala was third.

Loeb had a lead of over seven seconds over Hirvonen going into the final special and had increased his overall lead to 9.8 seconds by the finish over the Finn, who finished runner-up to him last season.

"It was a marvellous rally and it is always really more exciting when you win after an intense battle like that," said Loeb, who won the season-opener in Ireland.

"It was very difficult, mentally as well, because Mikko drove superbly.

"I had to attack from start to finish, I am really happy because it was a real challenge for me, on the snow," added Loeb.

Loeb has 20 points in the overall standings, six ahead of Hirvonen in second. Hirvonen said he was happy to get the race finished.

"I'm sad we came second but I?m glad it?s finished. It was a close fight but it didn't go well for me all the way through," said Hirvonen.

"I don't have any regrets about deliberately dropping time on Friday, it was only one or two seconds and that wouldn?t be enough to make a difference.

"He was quicker Saturday and that was that. Now we have to go to the next rally and go flat-out. Hopefully we can do better there," added the Finn looking ahead to Cyprus in March.

Former world champion Petter Solberg, who was without a drive at the start of the season when Subaru pulled out, finished in sixth place in his eight-year-old Citroen, a private entry which was once driven by Loeb.

"It's a dream to just be here ? we didn't even have a team three weeks ago," said Solberg.

"I was so worried about the clutch on the last few stages I used the normal gearshift system and lost four or five seconds on every start."