Loeb pulls away from battling Fords

The championship leader was concerned about high tyre wear in the hot conditions first thing this morning, and then backed off for wet sections early in SS9, yet still managed to win the stage and stretch his lead.

"There were some tricky places, so I didn't want to take any risks," said Loeb. "But the tyre wear was okay."

In the Citroen driver's wake, the Ford duo's battle for second has intensified, with Francois Duval passing Mikko Hirvonen for second in today's first stage, before they swapped places again in SS8. They head for midday service 2.6 seconds apart.

The fight over fourth place is now down to a two-way contest between Jari-Matti Latvala's Stobart Ford and Petter Solberg's Subaru, after the latter's teammate Chris Atkinson lost over a minute with a puncture in SS9.

"Just touched a small rock on a cut and it went down straight away," said Atkinson. "I went as fast as I could with the tyre on, then it came off the rim with a few kilometres to go, so I just nursed it home.

"I knew we had a big gap behind. I guess I only lost maybe a minute, and to stop and change it would've been two minutes plus. Just got to get points now."

The same stage saw Solberg lose fourth place to Latvala, although the Ford is only 2.6 seconds ahead, while Atkinson has fallen nearly one and a half minutes behind their dice.

However the Australian remains comfortably ahead of seventh-placed Urmo Aava (PH Citroen), who continued his recovery charge after his Friday morning suspension problems.

His fellow rising star Andreas Mikkelsen has struck trouble again, though, this time picking up a puncture before his day had really begun.

"We had a puncture at the second corner," he said at the end of SS7. "I don't even know what I hit."

The Ramsport Ford driver lost nearly four minutes and fell from eighth to 16th, although he has already regained three positions.

Toni Gardemeister is therefore back in eighth place for Suzuki, and has pulled away from Subaru's Brice Tirabassi as the Frenchman continued to struggle with his Impreza's handling.

"It's very difficult for me this morning," said Tirabassi. "The set-up of this car is difficult, very understeering. The stages have not been good."

Both Tirabassi and 10th-placed PG Andersson - who is happy with his Suzuki but frustrated with his driving - are both coming under pressure from the chasing Matthew Wilson (Stobart Ford) and Mads Ostberg (Adapta Subaru), with only 17 seconds covering ninth to 12th places.

Conrad Rautenbach was in the thick of this group before he too suffered a puncture in SS9 and lost three minutes, falling to 16th.

Leading positions after SS9:

Pos  Driver                Car      Time
 1.  Sebastien Loeb        Citroen  1h50:23.7
 2.  Mikko Hirvonen        Ford      +   41.7
 3.  Francois Duval        Ford      +   44.3
 4.  Jari-Matti Latvala    Ford      + 1:40.8
 5.  Petter Solberg        Subaru    + 1:43.4
 6.  Chris Atkinson        Subaru    + 3:06.6
 7.  Urmo Aava             Citroen   + 4:27.1
 8.  Toni Gardemeister     Suzuki    + 4:56.5
 9.  Brice Tirabassi       Subaru    + 5:20.1
10.  Per-Gunnar Andersson  Suzuki    + 5:29.2