Loeb extends his Rally Ireland lead

The world champion was quickest in two of the loop's three stages and now leads his Citroen teammate Dani Sordo by 11.2 seconds.

Sordo had briefly narrowed the gap to three seconds by winning the Bencroy stage, where Loeb admitted he had not been on the pace.

"I didn't drive very well in the stage before last," he said. "I wasn't confident, and Dani was very fast, so now it's very close."

With his title rival Marcus Gronholm having crashed out this morning, Loeb is set to take the points lead this weekend, but he remained cautious about his chances with two days still to go.

"What's important is to keep the car on the road," he said. "For the moment everything is okay. There's a long day tomorrow, got to keep the concentration, it's tricky."

Despite Loeb edging away from him, Sordo was content to be part of Citroen's commanding one-two.

"The conditions are very bad, but I'm happy," he said. "The two Citroens are in front, so it's perfect."

The team are now a minute and a half clear of the field, with Stobart Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala having cemented his third place by pulling away from works driver Mikko Hirvonen during the afternoon.

"It's been a terrible day," Hirvonen admitted. "Everything has basically gone wrong. It's just my driving for some reason. I'm not really attacking and I'm trying to drive safely and get the points, but in these conditions for some reason I find it very difficult."

Latvala was much happier after establishing a 25-second gap back to his Finnish countryman.

"It's been a very special day," he said. "A very difficult start, then it was getting better and better, and I was very surprised that we were in third overall."

Hirvonen's fourth place could come under threat from Petter Solberg in the remaining works Subaru. The former champion gained ground on Hirvonen in today's final stages and is now within 26 seconds of the Ford.

Petter is now the only Solberg sibling in the top six, as his elder brother Henning Solberg crashed his Stobart Ford out of sixth place in SS8. The car hit a tree, but the crew were unhurt.

Leading positions after leg one:

Pos  Driver     Car      Time
 1.  Loeb       Citroen  1h33:15.9
 2.  Sordo      Citroen   +   11.2
 3.  Latvala    Ford      + 1:28.4
 4.  Hirvonen   Ford      + 1:53.2
 5.  P Solberg  Subaru    + 2:19.2
 6.  Wilks      Subaru    + 4:13.6
 7.  Stohl      Citroen   + 4:41.9
 8.  Wilson     Ford      + 6:45.4
 9.  McNulty    Subaru    + 7:55.9
10.  G MacHale  Ford      + 7:59.8