Loeb leads in Norway after day two

Although Hirvonen trimmed just over a second from Loeb's lead in SS15, the world champion was slightly faster in each of this afternoon's other three stages.

Loeb had been concerned that running first on the road would be a greater disadvantage in the repeated stages than it had been this morning, so was relieved that Hirvonen hadn't gained on him.

"That was really hard," said Loeb after SS14. "There's a lot of snow, we have to clean a lot now. Now the road position is not so good. But right now Mikko's not doing so well behind."

Hirvonen was frustrated that Loeb's Citroen continued to edge away no matter how hard he pushed.

"It's still game on, but I'm pushing so hard that it's so easy to make small mistakes and sometimes you can lose a little bit of time when you hit the snow bank," said the Ford driver. "I can't go any faster. I'm absolutely on the limit. That's all we had."

But he was not willing to concede defeat yet, especially as Sunday is the rally's longest leg at 126 kilometres.

"It's not over," said Hirvonen. "There's still a long day tomorrow."

Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala took two stage wins this afternoon after making a set-up breakthrough at the lunchtime service. But with Loeb 43.2 seconds ahead of him, third-placed Latvala admitted he had missed his chance to fight for victory.

"Now it's going well. Unfortunately we found the right set-up a little bit too late," he said. "We went to softer springs in the service and that's really given me traction and made it easier in the braking points, so I should have taken them much earlier.

"It's not over, but it will be very difficult to catch those guys. But you never know what will happen."

Henning Solberg (Stobart Ford) has now moved up to fourth place - overhauling Dani Sordo by winning Mountain 2, and then continuing to pull away from the Citroen number two despite overshooting a junction and having to reverse back onto the course in SS16.

His elder brother Petter had a bad afternoon, though, losing over a minute with a severe misfire in Mountain. A gearbox oil leak also gave him cause for concern later in the loop, although he was able to move back past Matthew Wilson (Stobart) to regain sixth in his self-run Citroen Xsara.

Wilson is set to come under pressure from his teammate Urmo Aava tomorrow morning - the Estonian having picked up speed this afternoon after realising that his pace notes were too conservative. The gap between the pair is now down to 25 seconds.

Mads Ostberg remains ninth in the Adapta Subaru, despite power steering failure adding to his dramas in SS16, while Sebastien Ogier has returned to the top ten for Citroen Junior due to his teammate Conrad Rautenbach losing time in a snow bank in SS15. With his earlier alternator glitch having dropped him out of the points, Ogier is now just focusing on learning the stages.

"Everything is fixed so now we can finish," he said. "We can't get a result, but we're here so we'll get experience."

In the Production category, Patrik Sandell remains on course for a dominant victory - currently leading by over two minutes in the Red Bull Skoda.

Leading positions after day two:

Pos  Driver              Car      Time
 1.  Sebastien Loeb      Citroen  2h22:11.1
 2.  Mikko Hirvonen      Ford      +   15.0
 3.  Jari-Matti Latvala  Ford      +   43.2
 4.  Henning Solberg     Ford      + 2:41.3
 5.  Dani Sordo          Citroen   + 2:53.3
 6.  Petter Solberg      Citroen   + 4:50.9
 7.  Matthew Wilson      Ford      + 4:53.2
 8.  Urmo Aava           Ford      + 5:18.5
 9.  Mads Ostberg        Subaru    + 6:57.8
10.  Sebastien Ogier     Citroen   + 9:10.2