Loeb set for Corsica victory

The championship leader had hoped to at least keep his title rival under pressure going into the final leg, but instead Gronholm will start Sunday 27.5 seconds adrift of Loeb.

"Incredible - I cannot go faster," said Gronholm after SS11, where he had lost another five seconds to Loeb. "It's not possible now."

His problems then increased in the following stage, where his paddle-shift mechanism stopped working and his engine lost power three kilometres from the end, although the Finn had no trouble reaching the finish and heading off to the evening service.

Loeb was unsurprisingly pleased with his day's work, having added 23 seconds to his advantage during leg two's six stages.

"It's been a fantastic day," said Loeb. "I've been pushing very hard all day to increase my lead because this morning it was very small. Now it's much better for tomorrow.

"It's looking good. The car is going perfectly, absolutely no mistakes, no problems. Tomorrow the stages are some that we know a bit better so I hope we are able to find a good rhythm and keep our position."

Third-placed Dani Sordo took his first stage win of the event in SS10, but the Citroen number two is unlikely to gain any positions as he is now 33.1 seconds behind Gronholm.

Francois Duval's fourth place is looking less secure after the Belgian's OMV Kronos Citroen hit both gearbox and brake problems in SS11. Forced to switch to manual gearshifting and struggling to slow the car into corners, Duval's lead over fifth-placed Jari-Matti Latvala is down to 2.4 seconds.

"It has been a very good day," said Latvala. "Unfortunately Duval is having problems but he has been all the time faster than I have. We'll see what happens, we still have a long day tomorrow."

Latvala pulled away from Petter Solberg during the afternoon's first two stages as understeer continued to hold the former champion back. Solberg managed to regain a little ground in SS12 to end the leg seven seconds behind the Stobart Ford.

"The car is definitely better, there's no doubt," said Solberg. "I'm trying, but I've been struggling a lot with understeer today. We'll see if we can do something with it when we come back to service, but it has not been a perfect day."

Despite a spin on very worn tyres in SS11, Chris Atkinson continues to run seventh, ahead of Xevi Pons and Jan Kopecky.

Manfred Stohl's attempt to get back past Henning Solberg for 10th ended when a fuel pressure problem caused the OMV Citroen to stop in the Calcatoggio-Plage Di Liamone stage. Twelve minutes and sixteen positions were lost before Stohl could restart the car.

Any remaining pressure on Solberg was then eased further when 11th-placed Andreas Mikkelsen's Ramsport Ford cut out repeatedly in the final stage and dropped back to finish the day 40 seconds adrift and only six seconds ahead of Solberg's Stobart Ford teammate Matthew Wilson.

Nicolas Bernardi also had more issues with the new Suzuki SX4. Running 36th after rejoining today under the superally system, Bernardi retired the car from the second leg when engine problems developed on the road section following SS10.

Leading positions after leg two:

Pos  Driver     Car      Time
 1.  Loeb       Citroen  2h20:58.6
 2.  Gronholm   Ford      +   27.5
 3.  Sordo      Citroen   + 1:00.6
 4.  Duval      Citroen   + 2:21.5
 5.  Latvala    Ford      + 2:23.9
 6.  P Solberg  Subaru    + 2:30.9
 7.  Atkinson   Subaru    + 2:49.3
 8.  Pons       Subaru    + 4:08.2
 9.  Kopecky    Skoda     + 5:52.9
10.  H Solberg  Ford      + 7:07.6