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Spain's Carlos Sainz has won the first running of the Central Europe Rally ahead of Stéphane Peterhansel (Mitsubishi / BFGoodrich) after a final day of suspense. With six victories in seven legs, the Volkswagen / BFGoodrich team has dominated the event. The German, Dieter Depping (VW / BFGoodrich) finished third to make it a 100% BFGoodrich podium.

After the cancellation of the Dakar last January, the works and private Rally-Raid teams finally got the off-road season under way with the Central Europe Rally, run between Hungary and Romania, which also launched the Dakar Series.

The winner of the 2007 FIA Cross-Country Rally World Cup, Carlos Sainz, has had an eventful rally. Overall leader on Sunday, the Spaniard then conceded more than eight minutes during the two Romanian stages run in the Carpathians. But since Wednesday, with the return of the rally to the Hungarian plains, on wider and faster roads, "El Matador" has flown at the wheel of his VW Race Touareg fitted with BFGoodrich tyres.

So much so that at the start of the final stage of the event this morning, on the shores of Lake Balaton, Sainz had an 18-second advantage over the Mitsubishi Pajero / BFGoodrich of Stéphane Peterhansel, who had been leading since Monday.

On this last 157km-long stage, which the car competitors were tackling for the third time, the double World Rally Champion steadily widened the gap on the Mitsubishi driver, who in turn stopped after the first checkpoint (CP1) after a navigational error.

The pace of the Central Europe Rally was more akin to that of a WRC rally, with the fight for victory coming down to mere seconds, as indeed did the battle for third place overall. This particular duel was between the German Dieter Depping (VW / BFGoodrich), a triple German Rally Champion, but a "rookie" in Rally-Raids, and Luc Alphand (Mitsubishi / BFGoodrich). In the end, it was the Volkswagen driver that again took the honours.

The unforgiving pace was the reason for the elimination of a number of pre-event favourites during the hectic week: USA's Mark Miller (VW / BFGoodrich) and the South African, Giniel de Villiers (VW / BFGoodrich) made costly errors, while Nani Roma (Mitsubishi / BFGoodrich) and Nasser Al-Attiyah (BMW / BFGoodrich) suffered mechanical woes. The return of Bruno Saby was enough to help the BMW X-Raid/BFGoodrich team come away with a face-saving sixth place finish.