Ogier unhappy about running order

The Citroen driver received his final target time for the stage too late - three seconds after he had finished the stage.

The former Junior World Rally Champion was supposed to finish the stage behind Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala, and instead he is now 3.1 seconds ahead - handing the Focus driver the advantage of another swept line on the gravelly roads for tomorrow.

A source in the team said the problem had been the small window of time to get the time to Ogier's C4. Hesaid: "We only had about 15 seconds to get the data and send it - via a text message - to the car."'

Visibly upset by the problem, which occurred in the final 25-mile run through the Jordan River test, Ogier said: "We had a problem with the communication from the team. We didn't receive the last information until we had finished the stage. Okay, it's not the plan we wanted to do, but at least we're not first on the road. What can we do?

"We had a lot of split times coming to the car in the long stage and we were okay and driving on the same rhythm as Jari-Matti. But when I didn't receive his final split at the end, the plan from the team was to continue to push if I had no information. Then the target time came three seconds after the finish. We missed the last information, which was also the most important one."

Rally leader Sebastieb Loeb said: "It's not ideal, but what can we do?'"