World champion Sebastien Loeb, in a Citroen C4, won the Rally of Argentina on Sunday for his fifth win in five races this season and the 52nd of his career.

Teammate Dani Sordo of Spain was second, more than a minute behind, with Norway's Henning Solberg, in a Ford Focus, taking third place, four minutes off the pace.

The final day's action proved disastrous for Solberg's brother Petter, the 2003 world champion, whose privately-entered Citron Xsara suffered mechanical failure when he was running in a comfortabale third place.

Loeb clocked the best time on Sunday's opening two stages before easing up to avoid problems which allowed Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala, who had lost eight minutes due to electrical problems, to register the fastest times on the next two.

Loeb then hammered home his superiority by topping the time charts in the 23rd, and final, stage of the race inside the Estadio Cordoba.

The world champion has now won six races in a row with his five this season in Ireland, Norway, Cyprus, Portugal and here following his victory in Great Britain at the end of the 2008 campaign.

In the overall standings, Loeb has a 20-point lead over Mikko Hirvonen who was forced to abandon the race here on Saturday after the engine on his Ford Focus over-heated.