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Rally Italia: Mikko Hirvonen in control as top three settle down

Mikko Hirvonen remains in control of Rally d'Italia as the top three drive conservatively in the wake of Friday's drama

With Sebastien Loeb, Jari-Matti Latvala, Petter Solberg and Thierry Neuville all crashing on the opening leg, Hirvonen was left with a golden opportunity to take his first World Rally Championship win for Citroen, with a one-minute cushion over M-Sport's Evgeny Novikov.

As Novikov holds a similar margin over his team-mate Ott Tanak, the leading trio all began Saturday focusing on taking it very carefully - although Novikov still managed a stage win.

Fourth-placed Sebastien Ogier struggled to sustain his Friday giantkilling form in Volkswagen's Super 2000 Skoda as the delayed World Rally Cars picked up pace and the Frenchman's gearbox choice proved incorrect.

Ogier is now just 3.3s ahead of Chris Atkinson's Mini, and both are being caught by Mads Ostberg, whose sights are set on getting back to fourth place by Sunday.

The Adapta Ford was fastest on two of the morning's three stages, quickly claimed sixth from Andreas Mikkelsen, and has reduced the gap to Atkinson from 51s to 11s since the leg began.

Leading positions after SS11:

Pos  Driver             Team/Car        Time/Gap
 1.  Mikko Hirvonen     Citroen       2h34m02.2s
 2.  Evgeny Novikov     M-Sport Ford   + 1m18.7s
 3.  Ott Tanak          M-Sport Ford   + 2m08.6s
 4.  Sebastien Ogier    VW Skoda       + 4m06.5s
 5.  Chris Atkinson     Italia Mini    + 4m09.8s
 6.  Mads Ostberg       Adapta Ford    + 4m21.0s
 7.  Andreas Mikkelsen  VW Skoda       + 5m13.5s
 8.  Martin Prokop      Czech Ford     + 8m27.6s
 9.  Karl Kruuda        ME3 Ford       + 9m21.4s
10.  Petter Solberg     Ford          + 10m41.8s

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