Loeb remains on top in Finland

Although the Ford driver made a promising start to his morning by trimming three seconds from Loeb's advantage in the first stage of the day, it was Loeb who won the next two stages and managed to re-establish his previous cushion.

The battle for third place remains very close. Stobart Ford pair Henning Solberg and Gigi Galli swapped places in SS12, as the Italian edged his Norwegian teammate out of the final podium position.

Galli then pulled away by nine seconds through the next two stages, leaving Solberg to fend off works Citroen driver Dani Sordo, who has closed to within 1.2 seconds of the Ford.

The two Subarus also changed order this morning, as Chris Atkinson became more comfortable in his car and set several promising stage times, moving ahead of teammate Petter Solberg to take sixth in the progress.

Suzuki's Per-Gunnar Andersson remains on course for the final point, although Ford privateer Matti Rantanen is still a threat to his position. Andersson is now the only Suzuki in the top ten after gearbox problems slowed Toni Gardemeister and allowed Matthew Wilson up to 10th in the third Stobart Ford.

Leading positions after SS14:

Pos  Driver     Car      Time
 1.  Loeb       Citroen  1h27:29.3
 2.  Hirvonen   Ford      +   15.7
 3.  Galli      Ford      + 1:31.2
 4.  H Solberg  Ford      + 1:39.6
 5.  Sordo      Citroen   + 1:40.8
 6.  Atkinson   Subaru    + 2:09.6
 7.  P Solberg  Subaru    + 2:21.1
 8.  Andersson  Suzuki    + 3:16.2
 9.  Rantanen   Ford      + 3:28.9
10.  Wilson     Ford      + 4:24.5