Loeb heading for Corsica victory

After winning the first 11 stages of the event and establishing a 52-second lead, the Citroen driver decided it was safe to relax in today's final stage, allowing Ford's Francois Duval to take the quickest time by 1.3 seconds.

"I tried to slow down a bit," said Loeb. "The most important thing is to keep going, but everything is perfect at the moment."

His conservative approach extended to taking two spare tyres for this afternoon's loop.

"We didn't want to risk having a puncture or anything, so we preferred to take two spares," said Loeb. "It's a bit heavier, but it's okay."

Mikko Hirvonen is still second, 4.3 seconds ahead of his Ford teammate Duval, who hinted that they were planning to hold formation through the remaining stages.

"I don't know if it's necessary to try to catch Mikko," said the Belgian.

Hirvonen's usual teammate Jari-Matti Latvala (who has been demoted to the Stobart team for the current run of asphalt rallies) made a breakthrough this afternoon and has pulled 22.4 seconds clear of Subaru's Petter Solberg - ending what had been a very close battle for fourth.

"It seems that these stage times have come quite easily after service," said the delighted Latvala. "I have been very surprised actually, I've really enjoyed the driving this afternoon. It's going very well, somehow we have improved."

Solberg felt that Latvala had upped his pace rather than the Subaru getting slower.

"It's very, very smooth and narrow, and we know that we are struggling in there," he said. "So I tried what I could. Latvala's a good driver."

Chris Atkinson (Subaru) and Urmo Aava (PH Citroen) are now in lonely sixth and seventh places, the latter slowed by a broken damper this afternoon, while a series of dramas have affected the group squabbling over the final point.

Suzuki's Toni Gardemeister lost four minutes and fell from eighth to 13th when he had fuel pressure problems in SS11 and then became stuck behind Brice Tirabassi's Subaru.

"We lost fuel pressure in the stage and we stopped for a while, then suddenly it started again after a few minutes," said Gardemeister. "That let him pass, and we tried to push him because maybe he'd make a mistake. But he was quite slow actually."

It was a bad stage for Suzuki, with Per-Gunnar Andersson crashing out of 10th place shortly after Gardemeister had his issues.

Although Tirabassi has moved into eighth place, Matthew Wilson (Stobart Ford) and Mads Ostberg (Adapta Subaru) have been rapidly closing on him this afternoon while battling each other for ninth. All three are now within 7.9 seconds.

The charging Andreas Mikkelsen looked capable of joining this fight by the end of the rally as he took 15-20 seconds per stage out of his nearest rivals, only to suffer his second puncture of the leg in SS11. That cost the luckless Ramsport Ford driver another five minutes and dropped him back to 15th again.

Punctures have also affected Munchi's Ford's Henning Solberg and (for the second time today) semi-works Citroen driver Conrad Rautenbach, further delaying both drivers.

Leading positions after day two:

Pos  Driver              Car      Time
 1.  Sebastien Loeb      Citroen  2h31:27.9
 2.  Mikko Hirvonen      Ford      +   52.4
 3.  Francois Duval      Ford      +   56.7
 4.  Jari-Matti Latvala  Ford      + 1:50.6
 5.  Petter Solberg      Subaru    + 2:13.0
 6.  Chris Atkinson      Subaru    + 4:06.2
 7.  Urmo Aava           Citroen   + 5:49.9
 8.  Brice Tirabassi     Subaru    + 7:04.8
 9.  Matthew Wilson      Ford      + 7:12.1
10.  Mads Ostberg        Subaru    + 7:12.7