Loeb extends his advantage

Marcus Gronholm had hoped to get back on terms with his championship rival today after a broken damper yesterday afternoon left the Ford 22 seconds adrift.

But Loeb quickly took control when today's action started, with a clean sweep of stage victories on the first leg two loop giving him a 41.5 second lead at the rally's halfway point.

Gronholm eased away from Ford teammate Mikko Hirvonen in the first two stages of the day, but a slow time in SS9 allowed Hirvonen to regain some ground, leaving the works Focuses 9.8 seconds apart.

Although Stobart Ford's Henning Solberg started the day just three seconds adrift of Hirvonen, he was unable to maintain a podium challenge this morning and is now a solitary fourth.

That position could soon come under threat from Citroen's Dani Sordo, who set a series of top four stage times during the loop to pull away from sixth-placed Petter Solberg and narrow the gap to the elder Solberg sibling from 45.4 to 22.7 seconds.

Toni Gardemeister and Manfred Stohl continue to hold seventh and eighth positions.

Both Jari-Matti Latvala and Chris Atkinson rejoined under the SupeRally system after their first leg incidents and are currently 12th and 13th, albeit seven and eight minutes respectively away from getting back into the points.

Leading positions after SS9:

Pos  Driver        Make        Time
 1.  Loeb          Citroen     2h 27:50.2
 2.  Gronholm      Ford        + 41.5
 3.  Hirvonen      Ford        + 51.3
 4.  H Solberg     Ford        + 1:31.8
 5.  Sordo         Citroen     + 1:54.5
 6.  P Solberg     Subaru      + 2:33.2
 7.  Gardemeister  Mitsubishi  + 3:58.2
 8.  Stohl         Citroen     + 4:30.9
 9.  Wilson        Ford        + 6:21.4
10.  Hanninen      Mitsubishi  + 7:45.3