Loeb extends his lead in Corsica

The Kronos Racing Citroen driver had gone into the final stages with a slender 4.9 second lead over title-rival Marcus Gronholm, however a blistering performance in both SS3 and SS4 allowed him to extend his advantage to an impressive 19.9 seconds.

It means Loeb has won three of the day's four stages, in the same event which he won all 12 in 2005.

Gronholm had been expected to be the man to beat this weekend on the asphalt stages after impressive performances on the sealed-surface in Catalunya in the last round.

However the Ford driver has been at a loss to explain the deficit to Loeb in the first leg, and only has only a small stage victory in SS2 to celebrate at the end of the day.

Barring unexpected disaster, the rally will be decided between Loeb or Gronholm. The pair are nearly a minute ahead of third place, which is currently held by Peugeot privateer Alex Bengue.

Bengue, has never finished on the podium of a WRC event, has driven superbly on the first day of his home to event to lie in provisional third. His best result was last time out in the Rally Catalunya with fourth place.

Bengue has marginally extended his advantage over Ford works driver Mikko Hirvonen from lunch and now holds an 7.8-second advantage in what will be the battle for the best of the rest in the Tour de Course.

Spaniard Dani Sordo has a good chance of finishing on the podium for the second consecutive event however, having come back from near disaster this morning. Sordo suffered problems with his Citroen Xsara's turbo boost and differential this morning, and stopped through SS1 in an attempt to solve the problem by rebooting his electrics to no avail.

However, having dropped to 13th after his problems, the Spaniard has now climbed back up to fifth, and has a strong chance of finishing on the podium at the end of the event on Sunday. He is just over 20 seconds behind third-placed Bengue.

Sordo's progress has dropped fellow Xsara driver Xavier Pons to sixth, ahead of Jari-Mari Latvala in seventh. Local driver Nicolas Vouilloz ended his day by rounding out the point-paying positions in his Peugeot.

Subaru's rally has continued to get worse, with Australian Chris Atkinson going off and losing nearly eight minutes in SS3.

Teammate Petter Solberg lost one and half minutes this morning for an off in the first running of the 32.89km stage of Ampaza to Col St Eustache, where he flattened his exhaust.

Atkinson, who was lying in 15th driving a 2005-specification Impreza, went off in the second running of the stage this afternoon and like Solberg, damaged his exhaust. The searing temperatures in turn caused the transmission to overheat and resulted in gear selection problems. He kept going, but lost a further minute on the lead in SS4.

Stephane Sarrazin, driving the second manufacturer points nominated Impreza, also had trouble during the stage, losing ten seconds due to a spin in a hairpin.

Having hit a bridge this morning, Stobart Motorsport's Matthew Wilson had more problems with a spin in SS3, losing over one minute to Loeb. He currently lies in 17th.

Pos  Driver    Make          Time    
 1.  Loeb      Citroen       1:13:18.9 
 2.  Gronholm  Ford          +    19.9
 3.  Bengue    Peugeot       +  1:15.6
 4.  Hirvonen  Ford          +  1:23.4
 5.  Sordo     Citroen       +  1:36.6
 6.  Pons      Citroen       +  1:44.6
 7.  Latvla    Ford          +  1:54.4
 8.  Vouilloz  Peugeot       +  2:04.5
 9.  Stohl     Peugeot       +  2:10.4
10.  Sarrazin  Subaru        +  2:19.6
11.  Duval     Skoda         +  2:20.0
12.  Kopecky   Skoda         +  2:31.9
13.  Galli     Peugeot       +  2:35.3
14.  Solberg   Subaru        +  3:07.6
15.  Aigner    Skoda         +  3:32.8