Loeb extends his Rally Finland lead

But Hirvonen shadowed him every step of the way and is just nine seconds behind in the overall classification.

Urmo Aava slipped back from his excellent third place this morning as Dani Sordo, Gigi Galli and Henning Solberg all had good runs over the three stages and now fill third to fifth places with just ten seconds between them.

Aavu is still sixth ahead of the equally impressive Andreas Mikkelsen, both clear of the two factory Subaru's of Petter Solberg and Chris Atkinson, and the Suzukis of Toni Gardemeister and PG Andersson.

Following Jari-Matti Latvala's exit during SS3 this morning, the rally lost another top ten runner when Mads Ostberg crashed and retired his Impreza at almost exactly the same spot on SS6, a repeat run through the Mokkipera stage.

Loeb took another narrow victory over Hirvonen in SS5 to increase his lead to 6.6 seconds, and there was absolutely nothing to choose between the pair on SS6 as they matched each other's times over the 11km section.

The Frenchman then added another 2.5 seconds on the final stage of the leg and is pretty happy with progress so far, while Hirvonen says he's still struggling to find a rhythm and believes he can go faster.

But Loeb warned that the road conditions are deteriorating and says it could be a risk on the repeat stages.

"It's a good battle with Mikko, but it's beginning to get rough in some places, especially on the softer ground," explained Loeb. "When it's like this it's more risky, but so far I've had no problems and have been able to push hard."

Pos Driver              Team           Time
 1. Sebastien Loeb      Citroen     43:07.1
 2. Mikko Hirvonen      Ford           +9.1
 3. Dani Sordo          Cirtoen       +32.2
 4. Gigi Galli          Ford          +36.5
 5. Henning Solberg     Ford          +42.0
 6. Urmo Aava           Citroen       +44.8
 7. Andres Mikkelsen    Ford          +50.7
 8. Petter Solberg      Subaru        +56.5
 9. Chris Atkinson      Subaru      +1:11.5
10. Toni Gardemeister   Suzuki      +1:37.5