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Mikko Hirvonen consolidates Rally of Portugal lead

Mikko Hirvonen continues to lead the Rally of Portugal for Citroen, despite Mads Ostberg's best efforts to catch him

Ostberg (Adapta Ford) took second from Evgeny Novikov (M-Sport Ford) on Saturday's opening stage, and hoped he could then chase down the leader, but instead Hirvonen extended his cushion to 47.3 seconds.

The Finn achieved that despite very high tyre wear on his soft compound on what are now surprisingly dry stages, while Ostberg was one of several Ford drivers hampered by a misfire - perhaps due to the level of water getting into the engines in waterspalshes.

Novikov was also having misfire issues, and decided that he would only go flat-out if it rained again, as he felt his lack of experience of the stages would count against him too much in the dry. The Russian is now 22.2s behind Ostberg.

All three morning stages were won by drivers recovering ground under Rally 2 rules, with 13th-placed Dani Sordo - whose Prodrive Mini team-mate Patrik Sandell remains fourth - fastest on SS11 before Ford's Petter Solberg set the pace on SS12 and SS13. That has brought Solberg back up to ninth place already - with the next four drivers, led by Martin Prokop's misfiring Czech National Ford, all realistic targets for the afternoon.

Jari-Matti Latvala has not matched Ford team-mate Solberg's pace and is 15th.

Leading positions after SS13:

Pos  Driver                   Team/Car                  Time/Gap
 1.  Mikko Hirvonen           Citroen                 2h10m38.6s
 2.  Mads Ostberg             Adapta Ford                + 47.3s
 3.  Evgeny Novikov           M-Sport Ford             + 1m09.5s
 4.  Patrik Sandell           Prodrive Mini            + 4m08.8s
 5.  Martin Prokop            Czech Ford               + 5m02.3s
 6.  Nasser Al-Attiyah        Qatar Citroen            + 5m02.5s
 7.  Dennis Kuipers           M-Sport Ford             + 6m11.5s
 8.  Peter van Merksteijn Jr  van Merksteijn Citroen   + 6m21.3s
 9.  Petter Solberg           Ford                     + 6m31.5s
10.  Jari Ketomaa             Autotek Ford             + 7m09.4s

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