Loeb leads from Ford duo in France

While Loeb was fastest through all three stages this morning, despite moderating his pace to conserve his tyres, Sordo was beaten by Ford's Mikko Hirvonen in SS1 before reclaiming second place in the next stage.

However Sordo's Citroen then came to a halt early in SS3, with following crews reporting that the Spaniard had hit a bank and crashed out. Both Sordo and co-driver Marc Marti are understood to have got out of the car unscathed.

Sordo's retirement has moved Hirvonen back up to second place, and although he is already 14.4 seconds behind Loeb, the Finn was satisfied with how close he had got to the champion's pace, especially in SS3.

"I'm really pleased with how this stage went," said Hirvonen. "It was a long stage, and in the stage before I'd lost some time, but I did a good time again now."

Francois Duval made a cautious start in the second factory Ford before edging closer to Hirvonen. He heads for the midday service 2.2 seconds behind his teammate.

Fourth place is being hotly contested by the two Subarus and Stobart Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala. Petter Solberg emerged on top of the trio at the end of the morning, with just 2.5 seconds covering the former champion, Latvala and Chris Atkinson.

There is also a huge battle developing for the final points, in which just 10 seconds covered six cars after two stages.

Matthew Wilson was set to complete the loop in seventh place for Stobart Ford, only to lose over a minute with a trip off the road early in SS3.

That meant that the two Suzukis moved up to seventh and eighth, Toni Gardemeister just ahead of teammate Per-Gunnar Andersson, with Brice Tirabassi (Subaru) and Conrad Rautenbach (PH Citroen) giving chase, and Mads Ostberg (Adapta Subaru) and Henning Solberg (Munchi's Ford) also within 20 seconds of the Suzukis.

Further back, two of the stars of the Rally Catalunya struck problems before their Corsican weekends had really got underway.

Last week in Spain, Ramsport Ford privateer Andreas Mikkelsen ran in the top five at the start of the rally, but this time he was immediately hit by an 80-second penalty for being late into SS1, and then made several mistakes in the stage.

"We came through the time control late, our own miscalculation," Mikkelsen admitted. "Then no rhythm at all, I think I lost a bit of concentration at the start and that followed through the whole stage."

PH Citroen driver Urmo Aava, who was on course for fifth in Spain before breaking his suspension in the penultimate stage, has already lost two and a half minutes with similar problems in France.

"On the first stage we broke a front-left damper, the oil leaked out and also the top mount of the damper is a little bit broken and now it's hanging with two bolts," Aava explained.

"It's been two hairy stages because it's a little bit bumpy and sometimes the car is not under control."

Leading positions after SS3:

Pos  Driver                Car      Time
 1.  Sebastien Loeb        Citroen  34:40.7
 2.  Mikko Hirvonen        Ford     +  14.4
 3.  Francois Duval        Ford     +  16.6
 4.  Petter Solberg        Subaru   +  36.3
 5.  Jari-Matti Latvala    Ford     +  36.4
 6.  Chris Atkinson        Subaru   +  38.6
 7.  Toni Gardemeister     Suzuki   +1:40.0
 8.  Per-Gunnar Andersson  Suzuki   +1:45.3
 9.  Brice Tirabassi       Subaru   +1:47.5
10.  Conrad Rautenbach     Citroen  +1:49.8