Loeb pulling clear of Solberg

The world champion was nearly seven seconds faster than Solberg on the opening 30km Resolfen stage, and then added three more on the 8km run through Margam Park, to build a 14-second advantage heading into this afternoon's final loop.

"It's been quite difficult," Loeb explained. "The grip is not so bad but it's changing sometimes and there are lots of hidden corners so I was hesitating a bit in my driving."

Solberg says his mind is clouded by his battle with Jari-Matti Latvala for third in the championship.

"It's very muddy, very very tricky," Solberg said. "Maybe I'm holding back a little because of the championship podium, but he's pushing very hard."

Latvala is closing in on Ford team-mate Mikko Hirvonen for third spot. He took 5.4 seconds out of his fellow Finn on SS17 and gave up just 0.2s on SS18, to leave the gap at 3.4s.

Dani Sordo remains fifth overall, now 30 seconds behind the Fords, after finishing behind the lead quartet on both of this morning's stages.

Henning Solberg remains alone in sixth overall, ahead of Matt Wilson and Kimi Raikkonen. Mads Ostberg had a good morning, setting the sixth quickest time on each stage, but is still two minutes behind Raikkonen in ninth.

Andreas Mikkelsen retains his big lead in the S2000 class, while Ott Tanak continues to lead the Production class with Armindo Araujo still safe in second.

Pos  Driver              Car         Time/Gap
 1.  Sebastien Loeb      Citroen   2h53m28.0s
 2.  Petter Solberg      Citroen       +14.3s
 3.  Mikko Hirvonen      Ford        +1m45.3s
 4.  Jari-Matti Latvala  Ford        +1m48.7s
 5.  Dani Sordo          Citroen     +2m19.6s
 6.  Henning Solberg     Ford        +6m18.3s
 7.  Matthew Wilson      Ford        +8m05.1s
 8.  Kimi Raikkonen      Citroen     +9m54.6s
 9.  Mads Ostberg        Subaru     +11m58.0s
10.  Andreas Mikkelsen   Skoda      +12m40.5s