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Rally Sweden: Sebastien Ogier in a class of his own

Sebastien Ogier goes into leg two of Rally Sweden in a class of his own at the front of the field

Five fastest times from Friday's seven stages placed the Volkswagen driver 31.4 seconds ahead of nearest rival Sebastien Loeb by the time the evening superspecial in Karlstad was complete.

Barring problems for Ogier, the main interest now seems to be the battle for second.

Citroen driver Loeb inched his advantage over Jari-Matti Latvala's VW up by two tenths to 1.7s on the superspecial.

But both could come under pressure from Mads Ostberg, currently nine seconds behind, early on Saturday. Once his Friday morning overheating problems were resolved, Ostberg was confident he had to pace to recover to second - although he doubts Ogier can be caught.

Pontus Tidemand completed a strong first day in a World Rally Car in sixth position, just 10s behind fellow Ford man Evgeny Novikov.

Thierry Neuville and Mikko Hirvonen shared the quickest time on the superspecial.

While Neuville completed day one in eighth position, Hirvonen's morning mistake leaves him back in 32nd overall.

Leading positions after SS8:

Pos  Driver              Team/Car              Time/Gap
 1.  Sebastien Ogier     VW                    1h16m00.1s
 2.  Sebastien Loeb      Citroen               + 31.4s
 3.  Jari-Matti Latvala  VW                    + 33.1s
 4.  Mads Ostberg        Qatar M-Sport Ford    + 42.3s
 5.  Evgeny Novikov      Qatar M-Sport Ford    + 1m11.7s
 6.  Pontus Tidemand     PTM Ford              + 1m22.1s
 7.  Juho Hanninen       Qatar M-Sport Ford    + 1m49.5s
 8.  Thierry Neuville    Qatar M-Sport Ford    + 2m00.2s
 9.  Henning Solberg     M-Sport Ford          + 3m25.3s
10.  Martin Prokop       Czech Ford            + 4m43.3s

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