Loeb leads as rivals flounder

Having dominated leg one, and further extended his lead in SS7, Marcus Gronholm had to retire after hitting a rock in SS8. The impact led to oil pressure problems, and forced the Ford to stop in the stage.

That elevated Loeb into the lead, and put Mikko Hirvonen and Henning Solberg up to second and third.

But in SS9, Hirvonen lost 40 seconds after striking a bank and damaging his suspension. While he was able to limp to the end of the stage and head back to service still in second place, Solberg was not so fortunate, coming to halt near the end of Su Filigosu 1. At the end of the previous stage he had reported a flashing oil pressure warning light, so may have suffered engine problems.

Loeb's serene progress therefore puts him nearly two minutes ahead of Hirvonen at the mid-point of the event.

"I wanted to push really hard and try to put Marcus under pressure," he said. "He was a bit unlucky.

"At the moment, it's going very well and I will try to finish like this."

Gigi Galli has emerged in third place after a superb battle with Dani Sordo. They swapped positions on each of this morning's stages, before Galli pulled out a 6.3 second margin going into service.

Chris Atkinson and Xavier Pons now complete the top six and are still in touch with the podium battle, while the problems for the frontrunners have elevated Jussi Valimaki and Kristian Sohlberg into the points.

The somewhat exasperated Petter Solberg has rejoined under SupeRally rules and now runs 12th.

Leaderboard after SS9:

Pos  Driver      Make        Time
 1.  Loeb        Citroen     2h 18:37.8
 2.  Hirvonen    Ford        +   1:55.3
 3.  Galli       Peugeot     +   2:31.4
 4.  Sordo       Citroen     +   2:37.7
 5.  Atkinson    Subaru      +   2:58.7
 6.  Pons        Citroen     +   3:19.3
 7.  Valimaki    Mitsubishi  +   4:23.6
 8.  Sohlberg    Subaru      +   4:56.5
 9.  Stohl       Peugeot     +   5:46.7
10.  Katajamaki  Ford        +   5:58.9