Ogier eyes 20s lead by end of day

The Frenchman was fastest on all three stages this morning, slashing Petter Solberg's advantage to just 5.4 seconds at service. Ogier's factory Citroen DS3 WRC took 52 seconds out of Solberg in 38 miles of competition.

"It's been a good morning for us," said Ogier. "I felt much better on these stages today. I hadn't driven the roads we used yesterday, but I did these stages in 2009 and even though I made new pace notes on the recce, I have been here before and that's important."

Ogier's plan for this afternoon is to push harder.

"To lead from the front, you would need at least 20 seconds," he said. "We will have to wait and see whether it's possible to take that lead, but I don't think so. Maybe it's better to wait and run behind the other guys. I think we could probably build the lead over Solberg, but it would be a different thing to do that over Sebastien [Loeb]!"

Solberg admitted he had been surprised at Ogier's pace.

"We calculated what was going to happen today," said the Norwegian, "and we expected Loeb to do what he has done, but we really didn't expect Ogier to go so hard and fast. We'll have to see what we can do this afternoon."