Day 3am: Martin holds on

This has left Martin seemingly cruising to his second win of the year.

Martin now holds more than 1m30s advantage over Sebastien Loeb after the two morning stages. The Estonian finished second to the rejuvenated Petter Solberg on SS9 and then went fastest on SS10 before the field rolled into service.

It was not all plain-sailing for Martin this morning however. The Estonian finished Leg 2 with his engine ablaze, and as he arrived at the finish of SS10, once again there was smoke coming from under the bonnet of the Focus.

Loeb is just two stages away from sealing his first world crown and unsurprisingly has dropped his pace considerably. The Citroen driver was sixth fastest in SS9 and fifth in SS10, some 20s slower than the pace-setter Martin.

The Frenchman is not in danger of losing his second place to another driver however because the next man is more than a minute down the road, and he is none other than Loeb's team-mate Carlos Sainz. The Spaniard seems to have shaken off the challenge of Marcus Gronholm in the Peugeot 307 who is a further 34s back.

Solberg has finally found some pace this morning having spent the whole of the Tour de Corse baffled through his works Subaru's lack of it. The Norweigen's world championship is slipping away by the stage, and with him needing to finish in second place with Loeb retiring at least to stand any chance of retaining it, there seems little hope.

The incredible Stephane Sarrazin is holding his own amongst the works boys in his privateer Subaru Impreza. The French former Formula 1 driver is now sixth overall this morning following the demise of Duval and looks more than capable of staying ahead of Freddy Loix's factory Peugeot 307 in seventh.

Armin Schwarz is eighth ahead of his Skoda team-mate Toni Gardemeister, while Mikko Hirvonen rounds out the top ten for Subaru.