Loeb holds off Hirvonen's charge

Ford driver Hirvonen began day three with an emphatic stage win in Valer, taking five seconds out of Loeb's 15-second overnight lead as the Citroen struggled with the loose surface snow while running first on the road.

However just as Hirvonen began to get his hopes up, Loeb fought back by going fastest by six seconds through Elverum - restoring his previous advantage. Although Hirvonen was then fractionally faster in SS20, he was very frustrated at the end of the morning.

"Not enough," he said after Budor 1. "But in this stage it's very difficult to make any difference. It's so fast, you're just on the limiter all the time. It's not good enough."

Loeb said his road position had slowed him in some parts of the stages, but that he had tried to maximise his advantage in the clear sections.

"There was a part where there was a lot of snow, and I knew was cleaning and that I'd lose some time," he said. "But the end was better, so I tried to push harder."

Hirvonen's teammate Jari-Matti Latvala has now settled for third, having been unable to close on the leaders this morning.

"We can't do anything else now but keep the third place," he said.

The battle for fourth place looks to be settled in Henning Solberg's favour, as the Stobart Ford driver extended his lead over Citroen's Dani Sordo by 14 seconds in this morning's first stage. Sordo trimmed the gap slightly in the next two stages, but heads for service 21.8 seconds adrift.

Sixth positions remains very close fought between Petter Solberg (Solberg Citroen) and Matthew Wilson (Stobart). An excellent performance in SS18 brought Wilson back to within 0.3 seconds of Solberg, before the Norwegian re-established a 3.6-second advantage - helped by intercom problems for Wilson and co-driver Scott Martin.

"We had to swap helmets just before the startline, and it was really crackly, so it was difficult to hear him right in some places where it was really fast," said Wilson. "But fortunately we swapped because it would've been a big drama if we hadn't."

Urmo Aava remains 25 seconds behind this contest in eighth, and was unhappy with his pace.

"In some places it's quite okay now, but still sometimes we are too slow, mainly in the long braking areas - I brake too early," said Aava. "It's the driver, for sure."

Mads Ostberg is still ninth ahead of Sebastien Ogier (Citroen Junior) despite another array of dramas for the Adapta Subaru, including steering rack and suspension problems.

"Just a lot of strange things happening, I don't know why," said Ostberg.

In the Production class, Red Bull Skoda's Patrik Sandell is still on course to take the first victory for a Super 2000 car despite an error in SS18 that allowed Eyvind Brynildsen (Ralliart Mitsubishi) to take 30 seconds out of his two-minute advantage.

Leading positions after SS20:

Pos  Driver              Car      Time
 1.  Sebastien Loeb      Citroen  2h54:56.3
 2.  Mikko Hirvonen      Ford     +    14.6
 3.  Jari-Matti Latvala  Ford     +  1:09.2
 4.  Henning Solberg     Ford     +  3:21.6
 5.  Dani Sordo          Citroen  +  3:43.4
 6.  Petter Solberg      Citroen  +  6:05.1
 7.  Matthew Wilson      Ford     +  6:08.7
 8.  Urmo Aava           Ford     +  6:33.4
 9.  Mads Ostberg        Subaru   +  9:05.9
10.  Sebastien Ogier     Citroen  + 10:24.1