Citroen pull clear in Germany

Sordo had lost out to Ford's Mikko Hirvonen yesterday afternoon, but quickly reclaimed second from the Finn this morning, as Hirvonen struggled for speed.

"I don't have a rhythm and I'm making small mistakes all the time," said Hirvonen after SS8. "It's not going well. I don't have much confidence."

By contrast, Sordo was delighted with his Citroen after overnight adjustments.

"I have more confidence in the car than yesterday, and I'm happier with the car today - it's my car this morning," he said. "Sebastien is really, really fast and it's very difficult to match him, but it's going well compared to Hirvonen."

Although Sordo was rapid this morning, he still couldn't match the pace his teammate was setting, as Loeb continued his unbeaten run of fastest stage times and extended his lead to 35 seconds over Sordo and 50 seconds over Hirvonen - despite taking it easy through the infamous Panzerplatte stage.

"I had a clean run, I tried to push at the start to see how it's going compared to the others, then in the middle I didn't wnat to take too many risks so I tried to drive in a good rhythm and tried to save the tyres," said Loeb. "It was good."

Francois Duval continues to run fourth for Stobart Ford, but factory driver Jari-Matti Latvala has now tumbled down the order after going off at a chicane near the end of Birkenfelder Land.

"We came into a chicane too fast and to avoid the bales I had to go into the field," said Latvala, who lost nearly two minutes in the incident then received a 30 second penalty for being late into the remote service - all of which dropped the young Finn from fifth to 10th.

Latvala's delay means that both Subarus are now in the top six, with Petter Solberg half a minute ahead of Chris Atkinson.

Stobart Ford's Henning Solberg is now seventh after Urmo Aava spun his Citroen into a tree in the morning's first stage, although the Estonian driver was able to continue in eighth.

Toni Gardemeister is running a consistent ninth for Suzuki, but his teammate Per-Gunnar Andersson fell from 11th to 16th after damaging his car in SS9.

Leading times after SS10:

Pos  Driver        Car      Time
 1.  Loeb          Citroen  1h46:21.1
 2.  Sordo         Citroen   +   35.9
 3.  Hirvonen      Ford      +   50.3
 4.  Duval         Ford      + 1:17.7
 5.  P Solberg     Subaru    + 2:02.1
 6.  Atkinson      Subaru    + 2:38.4
 7.  H Solberg     Ford      + 3:22.9
 8.  Aava          Citroen   + 3:35.9
 9.  Gardemeister  Suzuki    + 4:03.2
10.  Latvala       Ford      + 4:06.9