Loeb takes commanding lead

With just the three Sunday stages remaining, Loeb enjoys a 37.7 second advantage. But until Solberg clipped a rock and lost his power steering in SS13, there had been nothing to choose between the Subaru and Citroen drivers.

Loeb first grabbed the lead on the day's opening stage, where Solberg struggled with severe tyre wear. Although he could not change tyres until the lunchtime service area, Solberg was relieved to find the soft Pirellis performing better than Loeb's harder BF Goodrichs in the dustier SS9. Solberg duly reclaimed the lead in Duarte 1, and held on in Derramadero where Loeb was fractionally quicker.

With his tyres still marginal, Solberg was concerned about the prospect of revisiting the stages in the hotter afternoon temperatures. But he was delighted to drop only 0.3 seconds to Loeb on the second passage through El Zauco - where he had been 10 seconds slower in the morning. Buoyed by that performance, Solberg hoped to extend his 1.7 second advantage to something more comfortable over the remaining stages, but instead he lost 6.5 seconds and the rally lead to Loeb in SS12. Then came the incident with the rock 6kms into Derramadero 2, and Solberg's chances of repeating his 2005 Mexican victory suddenly looked very remote.

Solberg and Loeb's constantly fluctuating battle has been the main source of interest in a rally marred by attrition. Third placed Manfred Stohl is now nearly four minutes behind the leaders, and survived an alarming brush with the Mexican wildfire in SS13.

"I was very, very lucky in this stage," said Stohl. "It was full of cows, and I had to stop, but we hit one little cow."

Stohl wasn't the only driver to meet an unexpected (living) obstacle during the day. Solberg hit a stray dog in the morning, Chris Atkinson had a near miss with some horses, and Marcus Gronholm collected a brace of goats. Loeb also reckoned that the cows in SS13 cost him around five seconds.

The gap between Stohl and the chasing Dani Sordo grew throughout the day, with Sordo stressing that he would be perfectly content with fourth on his Mexican debut. They are under no threat from the much delayed Henning Solberg, whose aim for the final day is "to get my points and go home" after a series of brake problems and a time-consuming puncture.

Irish newcomer Gareth MacHale looks set for a shock sixth place after setting consistent top ten stage times all day.

"We're delighted with where we are, now we've just got to keep it together tomorrow," he said.

Production WRC leader Toshi Arai survived a puncture to run seventh overall, with Ricardo Trivino currently completing the points scorers. Arai and countryman Fumio Nutahara are under investigation by the stewarts after allegations that one driver provided illegal assistance to the other.

Atkinson stands an excellent chance of overhauling both Arai and Trivino tomorrow, having set some very quick times since rejoining under SupeRally regulations. He ended the day in tenth, a place ahead of demotivated championship leader Gronholm, who received a greater penalty having crashed out of leg one a stage earlier than Atkinson, and also suffered from running first on the road today.

"On the second run through the stages it was not so bad, but I'm not in fighting mood anymore," he said.

Mikko Hirvonen and Matthew Wilson, who rolled their Fords out of second and sixth places respectively in SS8 this morning, are both expected to rejoin under SupeRally tomorrow. Reports suggest that their cars were not too badly damaged in the incidents, but they had gone too far off the road to be able to rejoin.

Leading positions after leg two:

Pos  Driver         Make        Time
 1.  Loeb           Citroen     3h 07:57.1
 2.  P Solberg      Subaru      + 37.7
 3.  Stohl          Peugeot     + 3:49.7
 4.  Sordo          Citroen     + 4:21.9
 5.  H Solberg      Peugeot     + 10:20.8
 6.  MacHale        Ford        + 13:12.7
 7.  Arai           Subaru      + 18:52.1
 8.  Trivino        Peugeot     + 19:28.0
 9.  Al-Attiyah     Subaru      + 19:33.0
10.  Atkinson       Subaru      + 19:45.9
11.  Gronholm       Ford        + 21:38.3
12.  Baldacci       Mitsubishi  + 24:32.1
13.  Perez-Companc  Ford        + 26:40.5
14.  Ligato         Mitsubishi  + 26:49.0
15.  Kuzaj          Subaru      + 28:08.6
16.  Uspenskiy      Subaru      + 32:44.1
17.  Hirvonen       Ford        + 34:51.1
18.  Wilson         Ford        + 37:42.5
19.  Vojtech        Mitsubishi  + 44:41.7
20.  Ortuno         Subaru      + 46:23.0