Loeb: Kronos just as good as 'factory' team.

Sebastien Loeb has paid homage to Kronos Racing following his victory on the Rally Mexico on Sunday.

Speaking after taking his first victory of the season, the Frenchman paid the Belgium squad the ultimate compliment by revealing that he sees no major difference between being in a private or an official team. Loeb won the event by 48.9 seconds and both he and Petter Solberg were in a class of their own, finishing the event over 4 minutes up on Manfred Stohl, who was next best in third.

"It was nice to have a fight with Petter again - especially when I am the winner of the match! It seems that the season will be quite tough and I am especially happy for the Kronos team which achieved its first WRC victory here," he noted.

"The fight with Petter was tough, like last year, and I was so concentrated that I saw no difference from being in a private or official team which proves the efficiency of the Belgian crew. I would like to thank everybody at Kronos - and BFGoodrich.

"My tyres were very strong all weekend, especially for the second passes, and that enabled me to make up for the time I lost early on as a result of my position on the road. I've also won a rally that has not been kind to me in the past. It's been a win that I've had to go out and grab by the scruff of the neck. The tight battle makes this victory really worth it and it's put us at the top of the championship."

Asked in the post-event press conference if he could still have won the event had Solberg not had his power steering problem on day two, Loeb added that he wasn't sure. He did emphasise though that he lost out on Friday, when he had to sweep the road, something 'Hollywood' didn't have to do, as he was ninth on the road.

"It's difficult to say, it was close," he told reporters. "Petter lost 30 seconds with his problem on Saturday, but I lost 30 seconds on day one when I was cleaning the road. It was a good fight, really interesting. Then I had a more comfortable lead for Sunday and it was easier for me to finish the rally in this position. Then also on the first leg we had Mikko [Hirvonen] and Marcus [Gronholm], we will have some nice fights in the future. It's interesting to drive like this, when you fight for seconds in a 25 kilometre stage, very exciting. We had some very good moments on this rally. The car was perfect; we had no problems all weekend."

As for the coming events in Spain and Corsica, Loeb is hopeful he can add to his points tally, which currently stands at 26 points, 5 more than Marcus Gronholm who is second.

"I hope to make up some more points in the next rallies. I know on tarmac we usually go well and I've won a few rallies on tarmac. Our car and tyres work well on this surface. I hope we can win some other rallies," he concluded.