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Ogier maintains Turkey lead

Sebastien Ogier continues to lead the Rally of Turkey for Citroen Junior, with a 10-second advantage over a huge battle for second place

Despite running first on the road today, Ogier managed to maintain a consistently quick pace and stay clear of the works cars behind.

He pulled further away from overnight second place man Dani Sordo (Citroen) on the opening stage, then briefly came under threat from the flying Mikko Hirvonen's Ford.

But Hirvonen was hugely frustrated to find that changes had been made to the surface and configuration of SS12 Bozhane since the recce, and lost time again there, while Ogier coped better and went fastest.

Petter Solberg then won SS13, having saved his new tyres for the final stage of the loop, and vaulted from fourth to second in the process.

This meant that while Ogier heads for service 10.9s clear at the front, just 4.3s covers Solberg, Hirvonen, Sebastien Loeb and Sordo in second to fifth places, just 0.6s blanketing third through fifth.

Both Loeb and Hirvonen were frustrated with the stage conditions on SS13, as well as the extra gravel applied to both it and the preceding stage.

"That was a s*** stage, really, really bad," said Loeb. "Very difficult, you never know if you will break something or not. They put some gravel on the side and made some new corners. It was very dangerous."

Hirvonen added: "It's a good fight, but this stage was very, very rough. It's amazing the car can take it."

Kimi Raikkonen has edged away from Federico Villagra and Matthew Wilson and continues to run strongly in sixth place, while Jari-Matti Latvala's roll on the first stage of the day means he is now running back in 16th, having lost further time during the rest of the loop.

Pos  Driver             Car           Time/Gap
 1.  Sebastien Ogier    Citroen     1h37m50.0s
 2.  Petter Solberg     Citroen        + 10.9s
 3.  Mikko Hirvonen     Ford           + 14.6s
 4.  Sebastien Loeb     Citroen        + 15.0s
 5.  Dani Sordo         Citroen        + 15.2s
 6.  Kimi Raikkonen     Citroen      + 3m19.6s
 7.  Federico Villagra  Ford         + 3m32.8s
 8.  Matthew Wilson     Ford         + 3m52.6s
 9.  Ott Tanak          Mitsubishi   + 9m56.6s
10.  Dennis Kuipers     Ford        + 12m02.7s

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