Loeb and Ogier in ultra-tight battle
Sebastien Loeb and Sebastien Ogier will go into the final loop of Acropolis Rally stages just 0.1 seconds apart, as the world champion responded to his young team-mate on SS15
Ogier had backed off last night to put Loeb into the lead and ensure his Citroen team-mate ran first on the road this morning.
But Ogier was only 2.3s quicker than Loeb on today's first stage Aghii Theodori, putting him into a tiny 0.1s lead. And Loeb then fought back on New Pissia, where he went 0.2s quicker than Ogier to retake the lead by a single tenth.
Erstwhile leader Petter Solberg is now falling back. The Solberg Citroen lost third to Ford's Mikko Hirvonen on SS14 and is now 14.4s adrift as Hirvonen pushes to gain on the works Citroens, which he trails by 14s.
Both stage wins this morning were taken by Jari-Matti Latvala in the other Ford, bringing him back up to ninth as he recovers from the massive delays caused by his transmission and turbo problems on Friday and Saturday.
Leading positions after SS15: Pos Driver Team/Car Time/Gap 1. Sebastien Loeb Citroen 3h41m41.6s 2. Sebastien Ogier Citroen + 0.1s 3. Mikko Hirvonen Ford + 14.7s 4. Petter Solberg Solberg Citroen + 29.1s 5. Henning Solberg Stobart Ford + 4m44.3s 6. Matthew Wilson Stobart Ford + 6m05.5s 7. Kimi Raikkonen Ice 1 Citroen + 7m37.4s 8. Juho Hanninen Red Bull Skoda + 10m00.4s 9. Jari-Matti Latvala Ford + 13m06.9s 10. Dennis Kuipers FERM Ford + 13m37.6s
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