Loix still leads as Hanninen retires

The Skoda was running fourth when it went into a ditch on SS4 this evening, putting Hanninen out of the first leg.

Up front, Hanninen's temporary team-mate Loix - called up for his local rally to boost Skoda's chances - stretched his lead to six seconds by winning SS4. Meeke then trimmed a second from that on the next stage, and hoped he had reduced the gap further on SS6.

"On the first stage of the loop Freddy took a lot of time and I couldn't do any more," Meeke admitted.

"On the last one we nicked 1s back. Here I had nigh on a perfect stage, I couldn't have found another tenth. If he beats that, well done to him."

Loix did beat Meeke's time, but only by 0.1s - putting them 5.8s apart going into Saturday's massive 13 stages.

"I'm not over the limit, but I'm on it," said Loix as he completed SS6.

Jan Kopecky is still third in the other works Skoda, with Meeke's Kronos Peugeot team-mate Thierry Neuville up to fourth after Hanninen's exit.

Belgian pair Pieter Tsjoen and Bernd Casier fill the top six while Andreas Mikkelsen is slipping away in seventh but staying ahead of local legend Patrick Snijers.

Proton's arrival in the 2010 Intercontinental Rally Challenge has got off to a bad start, with works MEM pairing Chris Atkinson and Alister McRae, and satellite driver Tom Cave, all retiring this evening with engine issues.

Pos  Driver                 Car          Time/Gap
 1.  Freddy Loix            Skoda        54m33.6s
 2.  Kris Meeke             Peugeot        + 5.8s
 3.  Jan Kopecky            Skoda         + 22.1s
 4.  Thierry Neuville       Peugeot       + 45.7s
 5.  Pieter Tsjoen          Peugeot     + 1m10.5s
 6.  Bernd Casier           Skoda       + 1m37.6s
 7.  Andreas Mikkelsen      Ford        + 1m58.2s
 8.  Patrick Snijers        Peugeot     + 2m07.2s
 9.  Bruno Magalhaes        Peugeot     + 2m14.8s
10.  Jasper van den Heuvel  Mitsubishi  + 2m30.5s