Loeb still dominant in Ireland

The world champion added another stage win to his tally, stretching his advantage to a minute, with his Citroen teammate Dani Sordo continuing to hold a secure second place.

"Absolutely no problems, a perfect day," said Loeb, who will move six points ahead of Marcus Gronholm in the championship if he can maintain his lead until the finish.

"We are in the lead, with a good lead. The car is going perfectly and we really had no mistakes today and no risks."

The main action of the very wet afternoon stages was Jari-Matti Latvala's scare in SS14. The third-placed Stobart Ford went off the road and into a field, losing half a minute but remaining comfortably ahead of Mikko Hirvonen. He then regained some of the lost time by going fastest through Tempo 2.

"I wasn't pushing too hard, but there was just standing water on the corner and I didn't have it on my notes," Latvala explained.

"I couldn't turn it and I went straight into a field. The engine stopped but I got it running. We got a little bit stuck, so thanks to the spectators who came to help us."

Having driven very conservatively this morning, Hirvonen raised his pace briefly in the Sloughan Glen stage and pulled away from Petter Solberg (Subaru), who had closed in substantially earlier on.

Guy Wilks is still on course for an excellent sixth in the independent Subaru, while Matthew Wilson's seventh position now looks more secure after he responded to Gareth MacHale's morning charge and raised his pace in the repeat run through the stages. Wilson is now over 40 seconds ahead of MacHale again.

Chris Atkinson took Subaru's first stage win of the event when he went fastest in Sloughan Glen 2, but the Australian is still 25 minutes behind the leaders because of his accident on Friday morning.

Leading positions after leg two:

Pos  Driver     Car         Time
 1.  Loeb       Citroen     2h30:35.2
 2.  Sordo      Citroen     +    59.3
 3.  Latvala    Ford        +  2:08.8
 4.  Hirvonen   Ford        +  2:37.6
 5.  P Solberg  Subaru      +  2:53.2
 6.  Wilks      Subaru      +  5:52.0
 7.  Wilson     Ford        +  9:23.3
 8.  G MacHale  Ford        + 10:07.7
 9.  Mikkelsen  Ford        + 13:01.3
10.  Araujo     Mitsubishi  + 14:29.7