Mexico victory in Loeb's sights

With Loeb and Marcus Gronholm still a minute apart in first and second, the main interest at the start of the day was the battle for the final podium spot, with Dani Sordo, Mikko Hirvonen and Chris Atkinson all in contention for third.

But Hirvonen was determined to make the contest a brief one, and he opened the afternoon with a stage victory in Leon that put him back up to third, 6.6 seconds ahead of Sordo. He then extended that gap to 10.7 seconds in Guanajuatito to all but clinch third - although Hirvonen is taking nothing for granted.

"That's good, but it's not over yet," said Hirvonen. "One stage to go so I need to stay focused and keep driving well. You think he's going to give up? It's only 10 seconds, it's not that much, so I need to keep going."

"Mikko was really fast," admitted Sordo, who had struggled for grip in both stages. "I will push a little bit and we will see."

Atkinson had no answer to Hirvonen either, and has now fallen away in fifth.

"It's not nice to settle for something like that, but that's life," Atkinson admitted. "I don't have a good set-up this morning and can't push. A bit more testing, and then we'll be there."

The remaining points scoring positions all seem set barring late disasters, with Manfred Stohl, Jari-Matti Latvala and Matthew Wilson on target for sixth, seventh and eighth places.

Leading positions after SS18:

Pos  Driver     Make              Time
 1.  Loeb       Citroen     3h 34:20.5
 2.  Gronholm   Ford          + 1:00.4
 3.  Hirvonen   Ford          + 1:36.9
 4.  Sordo      Citroen       + 1:47.6
 5.  Atkinson   Subaru        + 2:16.7
 6.  Stohl      Citroen       + 3:28.8
 7.  Latvala    Ford          + 4:09.2
 8.  Wilson     Ford         + 11:59.5
 9.  H Solberg  Ford         + 13:56.6
10.  Higgins    Mitsubishi   + 19:10.5