Duval closes in on maiden win

Duval inherited the lead after overnight favourite Petter Solberg crashed out because he hit a kangaroo.

The Belgian won the final stage of the day, the sixth running of the Perth City Superspecial, and holds a 27.1 seconds advantage over Skoda's Colin McRae going into tomorrow's final leg.

Duval, who was dropped by his Citroen team mid-season after too many crashes, now has to survive six more stages - or 98.9kms - at the front to record his first WRC victory.

McRae continues to hold a podium slot in second position, as the 1995 Champion looks odd-on to score Skoda's best ever result. Their current best was sixth position on last year's Rally Finland scored by Jani Paasonen.

However, if McRae is to finish second he will have to hold off Mitsubishi's Harri Rovanpera, with whom he has been battling throughout the second day.

McRae took second position back from the Finn on SS16, but Rovanpera has been the faster of the pair on three of this afternoon's four tests, included fastest overall on SS19. The two are separated by just 5.1 seconds overnight.

Citroen privateer Manfred Stohl moved into fourth on SS17 ahead of Mitsubishi's Gigi Galli. Stohl's chances of holding off the Italian were improved when Galli lost 40 seconds halfway through SS18 after he went onwards at a junction.

Chris Atkinson continued to show that if it wasn't for steering problems yesterday, he would be in with a shout for victory on his home event.

He was victorious on both SS17 and SS18 after the cosmetic damage caused by a spin this morning was repaired, and moved ahead of Ford's Roman Kresta to take sixth.

Kresta leads his Ford teammate Toni Gardemeister by eight seconds in the battle for seventh and the final points paying positions.

Top 20 leaderboard at the end of Leg Two:

 1.  Duval         Citroen     2h 21:12.6
 2.  Mcrae         Skoda       +     27.1
 3.  Rovanpera     Mitsubishi  +     32.2
 4.  Stohl         Citroen     +   1:11.3
 5.  Galli         Mitsubishi  +   1:47.1
 6.  Atkinson      Subaru      +   1:54.3
 7.  Kresta        Ford        +   1:58.7
 8.  Gardemeister  Ford        +   2:06.7
 9.  Sola          Ford        +   4:06.3
10.  Schwarz       Skoda       +   4:53.9
11.  Arai          Subaru      +  11:09.9
12.  Teiskonen     Subaru      +  12:24.6
13.  Higgins       Subaru      +  12:44.0
14.  Pozzo         Subaru      +  13:16.2
15.  Nutahara      Mitsubishi  +  14:13.7
16.  Al-Attiyah    Subaru      +  15:40.6
17.  Brand         Subaru      +  18:31.7
18.  Villagra      Mitsubishi  +  21:37.4
19.  Frisiero      Mitsubishi  +  24:15.3
20.  Orders        Subaru      +  28:18.3