Reigning World Rally champion Sebastien Loeb boosted his hopes of retaining his title by winning the Rally of Catalunya in Spain over the weekend. Citroen driver Loeb finished ahead of his team-mate Daniel Sordo, with main title rival Ford’s Marcus Gronholm in third place.

Loeb led from the first day in his Citroen C4 to pick up his sixth win of the season and 34th, a record, in all. Loeb is now just six points behind Gronholm in the race for the WRC drivers’ championship.

The Top 10 finishers were:

1. Loeb  (Citroen)
2. Sordo (Citroen)
3. Gronholm (Ford)
4. Hirvonen (Ford)
5. Duval (Citroen)
6. P. Solberg (Subaru)
7. Latvala (Ford)
8. Atkinson (Subaru)
9. Pons (Subaru)
10. H. Solberg (Ford)

By the end of September, 146 drivers from ChampCar, IndyCar, Formula One, NASCAR, NHRA, and World Rally have qualified for inclusion in The Speed Blog Driver Rankings.

After several months at the top, this month Jeff Gordon is bumped by team-mate Jimmie Johnson while Ferrari F1 driver Felipe Massa and World Rally star Marcus Gronholm drop out of the Top 10.

Here are the Top 10 Drivers at the end of September:

1. Jimmie Johnson (NASCAR)
2. Jeff Gordon (NASCAR)
3. Lewis Hamilton (F1)
4. Scott Dixon (IRL)
5. Dario Franchitti (IRL)
6. Tony Stewart (NASCAR)
7. Fernando Alonso (F1)
8. Denny Hamlin (NASCAR)
9. Kimi Raikonen (F1)
10. Tony Kanaan (IRL)

Positions are calculated based on championship race results and number of events participated in each month. These are then added together and normalized for the year to date totals.

Sunday’s NASCAR Nextel Cup race in Kansas was plagued by rain delays, including two stoppages, and some controversial events that resulted in a near six hour running time. The most ironic incident was crowd favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr. taking out the car he will be driving next year, currently driven by Kyle Busch. Later Tony Stewart’s sudden decrease in speed due to a deflating tyre caught out the other Busch brother and Carl Edwards caught entangeld in the ensuing incident.

But the strangest was left till last. The race distance kept getting shortened due to failing light, first down from 267 to 225 laps and then to 210 laps. At lap 206 Jaun Pablo Montoya blew a tire bringing out a last caution. Rather than extend the race with a green-white-chequered finish NASCAR decided to end the race behind the pace car. Leader Greg Biffle was clearly having problem maintaining pace, perhaps due to lack of fuel, and dropped to the track apron. After a while a few cars passed him, but he was still declared the winner, much to the chargrin of the sodden crowd who believed that local boy Clint Bowyer was the winner as he had crossed the line first. And depending on how you interpret the various rules it could also be argued that in fact 4th placed Casey Mears was the winner.

The Top 10 finishers (according to NASCAR) were:

1. Greg Biffle
2. Clint Bowyer
3. Jimmy Johnson
4. Casey Mears
5. Jeff Gordon
6. Kevin Harvick
7. Reed Sorenson
8. Elliot Sadler
9. Kasey Khane
10. Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Lewis Hamilton underlined his prodigious talent and stunning car control during this weekend’s rain soaked Japanese Grand Prix. In an event that evoked memories of the equally sodden debut Japanese GP at the same venue 31 years ago, Hamilton was easily the class of the field, consistently running at least a second a lap faster and making far fewer mistakes than his much more experienced rivals. If Hamilton goes on to win the World Championship in his rookie year (as is looking more likely) he can point to this event as his defining moment. It may have been his fourth win, but it was clearly his best.  This one was simply a classic drive.

While even a Robert Kubica invoked spin couldn’t slow down Hamilton, while his championship rivals looked like amateurs. The Ferrari team seemed to be the only team unaware of a new rule that meant they had to replace tires once the race was under way. Both Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen faught back towards the front of the field, but not without several off track excursions for both.  Raikonen’s frustration came through in surly post-race body language, Massa’s came out in a breath-taking last lap on-off road wheel-to-wheel battle with Kubica.

Hamilton’s team-mate Fernando Alonso literaly threw his world championship hopes away with a lone spin into the wall that wrecked his McLaren in spectacular style.

It is said that rain is the great leveller promoting natuarl driving talent over technology, so it was perhaps no spurprise to see great drives from the likes of Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber, Adrian Sutil and Jensen Button, even if they didn’t all get the result they deserved in terms of final placings.

The Top 10 finishers were:

1. Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
2. Heikki Kovalainen (Renault)
3. Kimi Räikkönen (Ferrari)
4. David Coulthard (Red Bull)
5. Giancarlo Fisichella (Renault)
6. Felipe Massa (Ferrari)
7. Robert Kubica (BMW)
8. Adrian Sutil (Spyker)
9. Vitantonio Liuzzi (STR)
10. Rubens Barrichello (Honda)

South African Adrian Zaugg  scored a dominant victory in the opening sprint race during the 2007/08 A1-GP season opener at Zandvoort in Holland, ahead of Loic Duval of Team France.  Perhaps the hardest charging car on track was the Team GB car driven by Oliver Jarvis, who was mired in mid pack after passing several cars on his way from the back to seventh place.

Jarvis and Zaugg were once again the stars of Sunday’s feature race with Jarvis taking the lead from Zaugg after a round of pit stops and never looked like being challenged again. Former Indy 500 winner Buddy Rice was frankly less tham impressive in the Team USA finishing last in the sprint race and a distant 13th in the feature event.

After the first round the Top 10 Teams are as follows:

1. South Africa
2. Great Britain
3. France
4. Mexico
5. Switzerland
6. Netherlands
7. Ireland
8. Germany
9. New Zealand
10. Czech Republic