Sordo leads from charging Fords

Loeb had taken the lead from his Citroen teammate Sordo - who had led throughout day one - in this morning's first stage, and then proceeded to take three dominant stage wins and open up a comfortable 34.1-second advantage.

But on the way out of stage 11, the world champion collided with semi-works Citroen driver Conrad Rautenbach in a narrow part of the access road taking cars to and from the stage.

The two C4s encountered each other on a blind corner as Rautenbach was making his way towards the stage and hit head-on. The crews were uninjured, but both cars had to retire.

That put Sordo back into the lead, but Ford driver Latvala had closed steadily on him throughout the morning, completing SS11 just 0.4 seconds behind the Spaniard despite making an error near the end of the stage.

Although Sordo had lost time due to running first on the road all morning, he was able to respond to Latvala's pressure and win SS12 by a narrow margin - extending his lead back up to 0.7 seconds at the rally's halfway point.

Mikko Hirvonen is also firmly in contention for victory in the second Ford, and is now just six seconds behind Sordo.

Chris Atkinson continues to run a lonely fourth for Subaru, with Urmo Aava now elevated to fifth in the Estonian Citroen ahead of Stobart Ford's Matthew Wilson.

Loeb is currently still classified seventh under the Superally system, although it is currently unclear whether he will be able to restart for tomorrow's final leg.

Henning Solberg has progressed to eighth in the second Stobart car after his Friday brake problems, while Federico Villagra and Khalid Al-Qassimi complete the top ten in the Munchi's and factory Ford respectively.

Leading positions after SS12:

Pos  Driver      Car      Time
 1.  Sordo       Citroen  1h53:05.0
 2.  Latvala     Ford      +    0.7
 3.  Hirvonen    Ford      +    6.0
 4.  Atkinson    Subaru    + 1:52.7
 5.  Aava        Citroen   + 2:38.7
 6.  Wilson      Ford      + 4:07.7
 7.  Loeb        Citroen   + 4:25.9
 8.  H Solberg   Ford      + 4:40.0
 9.  Villagra    Ford      + 5:40.1
10.  Al-Qassimi  Ford      + 5:54.0