Latvala maintains lead in Wales

The gap closed substantially when Latvala (Ford) made an error in the second run through Halfway and allowed Loeb's Citroen to reduce his lead to just 2.4 seconds.

But Latvala responded by winning the following Crychan stage and rebuilding his cushion over the world champion.

Although this will mean the Finn runs first on the potentially icy road tomorrow morning, Loeb thinks the gap is now too large for this to make a difference.

"No, too far behind," he replied when asked if he was happy with the standings given tomorrow's road positions.

"I think Jari-Matti was really fast in this one. I had a good drive, I think, but maybe a bit too much caution on the ice sometimes, and I lost a lot of time."

However Latvala admitted that leading tomorrow morning might not be ideal.

"If it's going to be very cold in the night, it's not the best place to be," he said.

Dani Sordo still runs third in the second Citroen, with Petter Solberg (Subaru) staying close to the leaders' pace in fourth.

But Mads Ostberg's outstanding performance has come to an end after the young Norwegian's Adapta Subaru slid into a ditch in Crychan as he struggled with engine and throttle problems, taking him out of fifth place.

Suzuki's Per-Gunnar Andersson consequently moved back into the top five, but he is under pressure from the flying Henning Solberg (Stobart Ford), whose morning set-up changes really paid dividends this afternoon. He swiftly overcame teammate Francois Duval and is now just three seconds behind Andersson.

"It's very much better," said Solberg. "I'll try to reach the top five. That was the target before the rally, so we'll see if we can do it."

Duval remains seventh, and conceded that he was driving conservatively at times in his first event since the Rally Japan accident that left his co-driver Patrick Pivato with severe injuries.

"After Rally Japan, on the fast sections I'm sometimes off the throttle too much," said Duval.

Mikko Hirvonen's comeback drive has made spectacular progress this afternoon. A comfortable stage win in Resolfen 2 and second-fastest times in the next two stages saw the Ford driver charge from 13th place to ninth by the end of SS14.

"I'll try to keep the speed up that I have now," said Hirvonen. "It's going quite well and I'm really having a good time, so let's enjoy tomorrow."

Crychan was the final full-length stage of day two, but the field will now head to Cardiff to contest a short superspecial in the Millennium Stadium this evening.

Leading positions after SS14:

Pos  Driver                Car      Time
 1.  Jari-Matti Latvala    Ford     1h46:52.4
 2.  Sebastien Loeb        Citroen   +   10.8
 3.  Dani Sordo            Citroen   +   30.0
 4.  Petter Solberg        Subaru    +   55.6
 5.  Per-Gunnar Andersson  Suzuki    + 2:07.3
 6.  Henning Solberg       Ford      + 2:10.8
 7.  Francois Duval        Ford      + 2:32.5
 8.  Toni Gardemeister     Suzuki    + 3:34.5
 9.  Mikko Hirvonen        Ford      + 4:46.7
10.  Matthew Wilson        Ford      + 4:50.9