Loeb takes the lead on day two

Having led the rally by 9.6 seconds overnight, Latvala took to the dusty stages first this morning and immediately lost time to the chasing world champion.

Citroen driver Loeb narrowed Latvala's lead to just half a second by winning the Ibarrilla stage, then moved ahead in Duarte 1. He completed the morning with a 5.8-second advantage over the Ford.

"It's much better," Loeb said. "We changed the settings on the car a bit. Maybe Latvala is sliding a lot, or maybe we have better settings now."

Latvala said he now empathised with his teammate Mikko Hirvonen, who had lost time while running first on the road on Friday.

"I understand Mikko better now and how difficult it was for him yesterday," said Latvala after SS9. "When I was second car on the road it was much easier in the braking points than being first.

"It's not so easy, but I need to find a way to drive in this position. We still have a chance - it's not lost yet."

Chris Atkinson continues to hold third for Subaru, and is still within half a minute of the lead, but his teammate Petter Solberg lost four minutes with drivetrain problems in the Duarte stage and then stopped on the subsequent road section.

Solberg's misfortune has moved Hirvonen into fourth place, but the championship leader was frustrated not to be closing the one-minute gap to the leaders.

Henning Solberg (Munchi's Ford) and Matthew Wilson (Stobart Ford) now hold fifth and sixth. Federico Villagra had run seventh in the second Munchi's entry until losing several minutes with broken power steering.

The high level of attrition means that local Peugeot 206 driver Ricardo Trivino and the leading Junior series cars complete the top ten at the rally's halfway point.

Citroen number two Dani Sordo rejoined under the Superally system today having crashed in Friday's opening test, but the penalties for missing yesterday's stages mean he is classified 34 minutes behind the leaders and remains outside the top twenty.

Leading positions after SS11:

Pos  Driver      Car      Time
 1.  Loeb        Citroen  2h14:48.6
 2.  Latvala     Ford     +     5.8
 3.  Atkinson    Subaru   +    28.2
 4.  Hirvonen    Ford     +  1:11.8
 5.  H Solberg   Ford     +  3:35.0
 6.  Wilson      Ford     +  4:29.4
 7.  Trivino     Peugeot  + 14:06.1
 8.  Villagra    Ford     + 15:26.6
 9.  Ogier       Citroen  + 15:59.4
10.  Kosciuszko  Suzuki   + 17:18.6