Loeb set for dominant victory

The world champion lost eight seconds to his Citroen teammate Dani Sordo with a minor error in SS15, but re-established a 36.8 second cushion in the next stage, as both C4 drivers cruised towards the finish at a conservative pace.

"I just stalled the engine close to the end in a hairpin," said Loeb at the end of SS15. "There are a lot of hairpins in this stage and it's very easy to stall, and that's what I did. But it's not a problem. I didn't try to push too hard this morning, I didn't try to go fast."

Sordo confirmed that he had also eased back to save his car in the final few stages.

"I'm driving slowly and not taking a lot of risks, but it's okay and I'm happy," Sordo said. "Sometimes it's more difficult to drive slowly, but I'm driving with confidence and it's going well."

To add to Citroen's pleasure, Loeb's title rival Mikko Hirvonen is struggling to get back on terms with Stobart Ford's Francois Duval in their battle for third.

The Belgian returnee was fastest in both this morning's first two stages and is now eight seconds clear of Hirvonen, who is determined to reclaim the final podium place in the final three stages.

"We can go flat-out and try to catch him - that's all we can do," Hirvonen said. "It's much better to fight than to slow down, so we're going to go flat-out, no question."

But Duval warned that he was likely to be much faster when the field takes to the Dhrontal and Moselwein stages again after service.

"It's still very close, but I'm not taking too many risks on the first loop," said Duval. "I'm checking the notes and I'll push on the second run."

Adding to the factory Ford team's frustration, Hirvonen's teammate Jari-Matti Latvala's recovery charge was interrupted when he clipped a kerb and sustained his second puncture of the rally in SS15, costing him another minute and leaving the Finn mired in ninth.

"Nothing works for me now," Latvala shrugged. "It's not going right, but we just have to keep going. We came over a crest, there was a kerb, we just touched the kerb and after that we had a slow puncture."

Petter Solberg and Chris Atkinson remain fifth and sixth for Subaru, although the latter has lost a lot of time with damper problems through this morning's stages.

Despite his troubles, though, Atkinson is still a comfortable distance ahead of seventh-placed Henning Solberg (Stobart Ford), who is being steadily caught by Urmo Aava's semi-works Citroen. Just 14 seconds now split the pair with only the repeat runs through Dhrontal and Moselwein, then the Circus Maximus superspecial remaining.

Leading times after SS16:

Pos  Driver        Car      Time
 1.  Loeb          Citroen  2h57:43.3
 2.  Sordo         Citroen   +   36.8
 3.  Duval         Ford      + 1:30.6
 4.  Hirvonen      Ford      + 1:38.6
 5.  P Solberg     Subaru    + 2:37.4
 6.  Atkinson      Subaru    + 4:22.5
 7.  H Solberg     Ford      + 5:07.9
 8.  Aava          Citroen   + 5:21.9
 9.  Latvala       Ford      + 6:08.6
10.  Gardemeister  Suzuki    + 6:22.4