Hirvonen leads as rivals drop out

Ford driver Hirvonen had begun the leg with a 10-second advantage over Loeb, and although the Citroen driver was fastest in the opening Rikubetsu stage, he only managed to trim a tenth of a second from Hirvonen's lead.

Hirvonen then responded by winning Puray 1 by 0.4 seconds over Loeb, but the main drama came in the following Nieuo stage, where both Loeb and third-placed Jari-Matti Latvala went off the road in the very slippery conditions. Latvala had already fallen 17 seconds behind Loeb after a gearshift problem in Puray that forced him to switch to manual gear-changing.

Neither driver was able to resume, and even if their cars can be repaired for leg three, they would have incurred 40 minutes of penalties under the superally system by the time they rejoin the fray.

Loeb and Latvala's problems have moved Dani Sordo and Henning Solberg into second and third places. Sordo pulled away from Solberg this morning after a close battle on leg one, building his advantage by winning SS13. The Spaniard is now 50.4 seconds behind Hirvonen, and 27 seconds clear of Solberg's Stobart Ford.

Further back, Xevi Pons completed a miserable weekend for home team Subaru by going off the road in SS12. Although the Impreza was undamaged, Pons was unable to get back onto the stage and had to retire from seventh place.

After his leg one gearbox failure, Pons' team leader Petter Solberg rejoined in 65th position, 25 minutes behind the leaders, this morning under the superally system. The Norweigan hinted at what might have been by winning SS14 Sipirkakim.

Manfred Stohl briefly inherited fourth following Loeb and Latvala's retirements, but the OMV Kronos Citroen was then struck by clutch and starter problems, losing two and a half minutes in Sipirkakim.

He therefore fell from fourth to sixth, behind battling independent Ford runners Luis Perez Companc (Munchi's) and Matthew Wilson (Stobart). Companc had begun the day half a minute clear of Wilson, but a spin in SS12 allowed Wilson to close that gap to just 10 seconds.

The Argentinean driver eased away again later in the morning and is now 17 seconds in front. Perez Companc's teammate Federico Villagra holds a lonely seventh place.

The problems amongst the WRC field will allow Group N and Production WRC drivers to fill the rest of the top ten places as Loeb and Latvala drop further back with their time penalties for not completing the stages.

Local driver Katsuhiko Taguchi is eighth, with PWRC contenders Gabriel Pozzo and Takuma Kamada set to move up to ninth and tenth after class leader Fumio Nutahara retired in SS14.

Leading positions after SS14:

Pos  Driver         Car         Time
 1.  Hirvonen       Ford        1h47:05.9
 2.  Sordo          Citroen     +    50.5
 3.  H Solberg      Ford        +  1:17.5
 4.  Perez Companc  Ford        +  4:11.3
 5.  Wilson         Ford        +  4:28.4
 6.  Stohl          Citroen     +  4:37.0
 7.  Villagra       Ford        +  6:00.5
 8.  Taguchi        Mitsubishi  +  9:48.0
 9.  Loeb           Citroen     +  9:55.1
10.  Latvala        Ford        + 10:12.4