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The nine-time WRC champion was invited by event organisers to tackle the famous Portuguese island rally, which this year has dropped off the European Rally Championship calendar.
Piloting a Toksport Skoda Fabia RS Rally2 machine for the first time, Loeb and co-driver Laurene Godey combined to fend off three-time WRC event winner Andreas Mikkelsen to win the gravel rally by 19.2s.
Making his first conventional rally start of the year, after finishing second on the Dakar rally raid in January as part of his World Rally-Raid Championship programme with Prodrive, Loeb won the first four stages before fellow Skoda driver Mikkelsen pipped the Frenchman by 0.7s on Stage 5.
That trimmed Loeb’s lead to 15.1s at the end of Friday’s leg, and former factory Volkswagen, Citroen and Hyundai WRC driver Mikkelsen became locked in a head-to-h …