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Bouffier extends Monte Carlo lead

Bryan Bouffier extended his Monte Carlo Rally lead despite only being eighth-quickest on the first stage of the final day

After yesterday's sudden snow, dry conditions greeted the field for SS9, where Bouffier was slightly hampered by a loose spare wheel moving around and poor visibility through the low sun.

However despite being 23.2 seconds slower than stage winner Stephane Sarrazin, Bouffier increased his outright lead over Francois Delecour to 39.7s - though he is taking nothing for granted.

"There's a long way to go, and very tricky stages," said Bouffier.

Returnee Delecour was only 10th-quickest, and fears that the drivers with more recent mileage will be hard to hold off today.

"They are going much faster, it will be difficult tonight," he said. "I am not dreaming."

Delecour now has just a 12.1s gap back to third-placed Freddy Loix, although the Skoda driver was another man slightly off the pace on SS9, where he was only fifth.

"I'm pushing, but it was going quite well until the middle of the stage, but at the end we lost a bit of grip from the front tyre," said Loix. "I tried to keep some speed but was overdriving the car."

Despite a loss of volume on his intercom, Peugeot UK's Guy Wilks managed to close to within 8.1s of Loix, and maintained an 18s cushion over the chasing Sarrazin.

Erstwhile leader Juho Hanninen remains sixth. He was second-quickest on the stage but did not feel he had been at his best.

"I'm not sure what I should do, it's not so easy to get to full attack now," said Hanninen. "But they are nice stages so I'd like to enjoy it."

Petter Solberg, Nicolas Vouilloz, Jan Kopecky and Toni Gardemeister complete the rest of the current top 10. Further back, ex-Formula 1 driver Alex Caffi is still an impressive 12th, while GP3 racer Adrien Tambay holds 18th overall and fourth in the 2WD class.

After this single morning stage, the rally now pauses until this evening as the crews embark on a long road section back to Monaco. The event resumes for four stages under darkness from 7.15pm local time.

Pos  Driver             Car        Time/Gap
 1.  Bryan Bouffier     Peugeot  2h32m47.3s
 2.  Francois Delecour  Peugeot     + 39.7s
 3.  Freddy Loix        Skoda       + 51.8s
 4.  Guy Wilks          Peugeot     + 59.9s
 5.  Stephane Sarrazin  Peugeot   + 1m17.9s
 6.  Juho Hanninen      Skoda     + 2m14.9s
 7.  Petter Solberg     Peugeot   + 3m30.2s
 8.  Nicolas Vouilloz   Skoda     + 5m29.5s
 9.  Jan Kopecky        Skoda     + 7m40.1s
10.  Toni Gardemeister  Peugeot   + 8m07.5s

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