Latvala determined to fend off Loeb

The Ford driver lost time when running first on the icy roads on Saturday morning, and is concerned that today's opening stages will see a similar situation.

"I'm expecting the conditions to be very tricky," said Latvala. "I expect very solid and icy roads, and attacking will be difficult. But I need to do the first run without mistakes and see if that will be enough against Sebastien.

"I'll try to go as fast as I can in those conditions. But the conditions will be so difficult that it will be hard to make a 110 per cent attack. But I'm here for the fight and to fight for the win."

With Ford's manufacturers' title hopes fading now that Citroen hold second and third, and Latvala's teammate Mikko Hirvonen runs back in ninth following his Friday crash, Latvala feels he can take a more attacking approach today, as he chases the second win of his World Rally Championship career.

"It's a long time since my last victory, so I have to speak with (team boss) Malcolm (Wilson) and see what his opinion is," he said.

"But for sure we can see that the manufacturers' title is not so realistic anymore. But the victory could be very, very important for myself and for the team. That's what rallying is: fighting for the victory. I'm willing to fight, and I really, really want to win this rally."

Wilson agreed that given the current championship situation, Ford's best bet was to let Latvala push for the win and ignore the points.

"We've got to win the rally, that's the best that we can hope for," he said. "But that's not going to be easy with him running first on the road."

Latvala's lead was reduced at the end of Saturday's stages when he lost time in the Cardiff Millennium Stadium superspecial due to a clutch problem.

"Before the super-stage I was happy, I was able to take some more time against Sebastien," he said.

"But then there was very heavy traffic in Cardiff city centre, which meant a lot of stopping and acceleration.

"Our clutch started to overheat and smoke was coming out. So I said to my co-driver, jump out, we have to push and let the car cool down, because I didn't want a situation like we had in Argentina, when the clutch was completely destroyed and the car was not moving.

"After it was able to cool down, we agreed with my engineer that we wouldn't make a launch start, so we started the stage without the turbo, just very slowly to get the car moving, but this took maybe five seconds."