Ogier leads as Hanninen falters

Hanninen's Skoda led by one and a half minutes going into today's final stage, but he picked up a puncture in the first five kilometres and elected to continue for the remaining 15km with the flat tyre.

"We picked up a front puncture not long after the start of the stage but we decided not to stop and change it," Hanninen explained. "That was actually the right decision, as we lost less time by continuing but of course it made the handling really unpredictable.

"We just drove carefully through the stage and back to service but although two minutes were lost everything is not over yet and we still have a chance so we will be pushing hard tomorrow."

Hanninen still lost more than two minutes to his rivals, which allowed Junior World Rally champion Sebastien Ogier to move to the head of the standings on his Super 2000 debut.

"We have already seen that this rally is completely unpredictable, and while I am obviously happy to be in the lead, there is no guarantee that this situation will last," Ogier said. "I'm very aware of my own inexperience, both with the car and this event."

Ogier is only narrowly ahead of second-placed Freddy Loix, with Hanninen now third. Kris Meeke also lost time today following an off during the day's third stage, though the Peugeot driver is still fourth overall.

Another of the day's misfortunes befell Stephane Sarrazin who lost nearly five minutes when he went off the road on the opening stage of the day. But the Frenchman bounced back to win SS7 and now lies sixth in the standings, behind Toni Gardemeister.

Jan Kopecky continued to make up time in his recovery from the time lost to a power steering failure yesterday, and victory on SS6 helped him to climb back up to seventh overall.

Reigning IRC champion Nicolas Vouilloz was forced to retire after he hit a rock on SS7 and broke his Peugeot's steering.

Pos Driver              Team                 Time
 1. Sebastien Ogier     Peugeot         2:35:09.8 
 2. Freddy Loix         Peugeot             +32.4 
 3. Juho Hanninen       Skoda               +54.8 
 4. Kris Meeke          Peugeot             +59.2 
 5. Toni Gardemeister   Abarth            +1:40.7 
 6. Stephane Sarrazin   Peugeot           +3:42.6 
 7. Jan Kopecky         Skoda             +4:10.6 
 8. Giandomenico Basso  Abarth            +4:17.8 
 9. Anton               Punto             +8:12.8 
10. Franz Wittmann      Mitsubishi       +10:01.8