Solberg regains the lead

The battle for victory is now between these two drivers, as overnight second place man Mikko Hirvonen rolled in SS8. His Ford Focus became stuck in a ditch and could not rejoin.

Loeb was fastest through the El Zauco 1 stage by 10 seconds, leaping from third place to first in the process, 0.7 seconds ahead of Solberg. The Kronos Citroen driver had chosen a harder tyre for this morning's loop and the decision appeared to be paying dividends, especially as Solberg's Pirellis were wilting in the heat.

But Solberg fought back in SS9, outpacing Loeb by 4.2 seconds and moving back into the rally lead, despite having to ease off slightly due to overheating concerns and having hit a stray dog. Loeb reckoned that his hard BF Goodrichs were not so well suited to this stage, but he expected to be closely matched with Solberg in SS10. This prophecy proved absolutely accurate, as Loeb beat Solberg to the stage win by just 1.5 seconds, leaving the pair 2.0 seconds apart at the rally's halfway point.

Despite reclaiming the lead, Solberg is slightly pessimistic about his prospects on today's second loop, as he fears his Pirellis will prove ill-suited to the rising temperatures.

"It's not easy with the tyre situation," he said. "It's going to be tough later, very tough. I've got better tyres for this afternoon, but it's too warm."

With Hirvonen out of contention, the battle for the final podium spot is now between Manfred Stohl in the OMV Peugeot 307 and Loeb's team-mate Dani Sordo. Stohl has been unhappy with his set-up throughout the event but managed to ease away from Sordo, who is making his Rally Mexico debut, during SS8-10 and establish a 26.8 second advantage.

Although Stohl's team-mate Henning Solberg claimed to be "driving slowly" due to persistent brake problems, the Norweigan moved into a comfortable fifth place - helped in part by Matthew Wilson crashing out in El Zauco 1. Irish driver Gareth MacHale has kept up a steady pace all morning and now runs sixth, ahead of Production WRC category leader Toshi Arai.

Chris Atkinson and Marcus Gronholm both rejoined the event under SupeRally regulations having crashed on leg one, but they have incurred substantial time penalties for missing yesterday's latter stages, and now have the added handicap of running first on the road. At present, neither has managed to get back into the top ten.

Top 20 after SS10:

Pos  Driver         Make        Time
 1.  P Solberg      Subaru      2h 16:37.9
 2.  Loeb           Citroen     + 2.0
 3.  Stohl          Peugeot     + 2:44.8
 4.  Sordo          Citroen     + 3:11.6
 5.  H Solberg      Peugeot     + 7:56.7
 6.  MacHale        Ford        + 9:25.9
 7.  Arai           Subaru      + 11:48.8
 8.  Trivino        Peugeot     + 13:08.0
 9.  Al-Attiyah     Subaru      + 13:52.6
10.  Hirvonen       Ford        + 14:53.1*
11.  Ligato         Mitsubishi  + 16:19.9
12.  Atkinson       Subaru      + 16:51.0
13.  Wilson         Ford        + 17:44.5*
14.  Baldacci       Mitsubishi  + 18:11.4
15.  Uspenskiy      Subaru      + 20:36.2
16.  Gronholm       Ford        + 20:57.3
17.  Kuzaj          Subaru      + 21:25.8
18.  Vojtech        Mitsubishi  + 21:41.5
19.  Perez-Companc  Ford        + 22:41.4
20.  Latvala        Subaru      + 27:44.1