Cave serves notice

Sebastien Loeb, the last-minute winner of a dramatic Wales GB Rally, may rule his sport for now but a new British teenage talent showed his potential to one day challenge the five-time world champion.

Tom Cave turned 17 just 18 days before the final round of the World Rally Championship began on Friday, yet the Welsh lad returned a performance of immense maturity to finish 30th overall and winner of his production car class at yesterday's finish in Cardiff.

In a two-wheel-drive Ford Fiesta, Cave was never going to be in the same league as Loeb, who finally added victory in Britain's toughest motor sport event to his conquests in classic rallying in a far more powerful four-wheel-drive Citroen.

Loeb, who had fallen victim to ice when he overturned his car on a practice run, put that embarrassment behind him to claim his 11th victory from 15 starts this season.

But the Frenchman had to work for it, coming from two seconds down going into the 19th and final stage to beat the Ford of Finland's overnight leader Jari-Matti Latvala by 2.7 seconds. The brilliance of Loeb's drive through a stage near Port Talbot that embraced car-punishing potholes, plunging ice-covered bends and fast curves lined by stout trees, is what Cave must strive for.

He honed his skills in Latvia, where driving laws allowed him to compete on private tracks but not on stage-linking road sections where experienced co-driver Gemma Price took the wheel.