Citroen ace's last-ditch charge

After the first 30km run through Rhondda, Loeb is now 36secs behind Solberg, who will win the WRC title if he maintains his lead of the rally today.

"I'm going to keep up a good rhythm and we'll see what happens," said Loeb after the stage. "The target is to finish. You never know, he could make a spin or small mistake that could cost him time."

Solberg, who lost a chunk of time to Loeb at the end of the stage, said Subaru is playing it safe on the final day of the event to protect his lead.

"It's very difficult out there, and we're using a very safe tyre," said Solberg. "We're not taking any risks at all. Everything is safe. I can give him 20secs on the next stage, 15secs on the last one, and I'll still win by 1sec!"

Subaru team boss David Lapworth said: "Petter seems to have it well under control. We're expecting rain showers later, so the plan is to play is very conservatively."

Tommi Makinen (Subaru) extended his lead over fourth placed Colin McRae (Citroen) by 2.3secs to make that gap now 8.5secs overall. Makinen suffered a scare when he struck a bird and said: "It's not so easy in the stage. It's very, very foggy in places. Sometimes there is no grip at all."

McRae said: "That wasn't very good. Our team orders this morning were to make sure we finish. It's impossible to drive hard in these conditions."

Helping Citroen's aim of winning the manufacturers' title, rivals Peugeot suffered a blow when fifth placed Harri Rovanpera went out on this stage with reported clutch problems. Freddy Loix, who moves up to sixth as a result, lost 15secs on his battle with Ford's Francois Duval when he spun and stalled this morning.

Another man to hit trouble, and a ditch, was Skoda's Toni Gardemeister.