Sebastien Loeb began his World Rally Championship title defence in the best way possible as he claimed a record fifth Monte Carlo Rally victory.

The 33-year-old Frenchman did not go quickest on any of the final day's stages, but had enough of an advantage at the start of the day to finish the event 2:34.4 seconds ahead of Ford driver Mikko Hirvonen without breaking any sweat.

In winning, the Citroen driver opened up an early two-point lead in the world championship over Hirvonen, and also eased ahead of Sandro Munari, Walter Rorhl and Tommi Makinen - all of whom he had shared the Monte Carlo record with previously.

"It's been a great weekend for us to win here," said Loeb. "It's my fifth victory too, so it's a great moment.

"It's the home rally for my co-driver Daniel Elena, and a mystical rally for the championship, so a good win.

"We were faster than everyone for the first few days, but the rest of the championship it was more complicated, so this is not how it will be forever."

Hirvonen's second place came after engine problems forced the day three retirement of Dani Sordo, and gave him two points more than he was expecting to collect from the event.

The star of the final morning was Belgian Francois Duval. The Stobart Ford driver, who is a renowned asphalt specialist, began the day 20 seconds behind the third place Subaru of Chris Atkinson.

But, some extreme bravery on the damp stages saw him go fastest of all over three of the first four stages on the final day and helped him bring his deficit down to just one second with the Monaco harbour stage left.

Atkinson though dug deep and set an identical time to his rival on the final stage around Monaco harbour. It was enough to give him third place and ended a two and a half year wait for his second WRC podium finish.

"It's cool," said Atkinson. "It's been a few years since I was on the podium and it's my first on tarmac too.

"I expected guys like Francois to go really well here, so I'm a little surprised to get a podium. There's a load of Aussies here so I think it will be a good night."

Atkinson's former world champion team-mate Petter Solberg finished fifth, almost two minutes behind Duval but twice that distance ahead of Gigi Galli's Stobart Ford, which came home sixth.

Seventh, and taking the best WRC result of his career, was Frenchman Jean-Marie Cuoq in his privateer Peugeot 307.

Cuoq, whose house was actually on the route of one of the day two stages, made the most of problems for the Suzuki duo late on day three to move into a position to score his first WRC points.

50 seconds behind, and scoring the final point on what was his first time in a WRC car was Suzuki's Per-Gunnar Andersson.

It was the Swede's first WRC point and also the first for Suzuki, who were only running the SX4 car for the third time.

Henning Solberg endured a bizarre problem when the intercom on his co-driver Cato Menkerud's helmet broke on the road section between stages 16 and 17.

After swapping helmets, the Norwegian duo made it through to finish in ninth place, while Britain's Matthew Wilson, in the third of the Stobart Fords, completed the top ten.

Sordo, who re-started on the final day under SupeRally rules, finished 11th for Citroen, one place ahead of the second Ford of Jari-Matti Latvala, who had to do likewise due to a suspension failure on day two.

Conrad Rautenbach suffered a brake bias problem on his Citroen, leaving him struggling to get around the many hairpins surrounding the famous Col de Turini.

It eventually caught up with him though as he crashed heavily on the final stage at the Swimming Pool section of the Monaco Grand Prix circuit. He smashed the rear end of his car in, but was able to continue the 400 yards to finish the rally in 21st.

Jamie O'Leary / Eurosport