Loeb on course for win

The 33-year-old Frenchman did not put a wheel of his Citroen C4 out of line throughout the afternoon"s five stages as he finished up with a lead of 1:00.8 over Marcus Gronholm"s Ford.

Loeb said: "The car is very good in this condition. I pushed hard but I don't' have any moments so I have a good gap and tomorrow I can slow down a bit."

Gronholm was content to match Loeb's pace, having done his hard work during the morning when he moved up from sixth to second.

After Gronholm had cleared off into second, the battle for third intensified.

It looked to be heading the way of Ford's Mikko Hirvonen, who began the afternoon in the position, but a spin on stage 14 dropped him ten seconds, leaving just ten seconds between himself, Citroens' Dani Sordo and Chris Atkinson coming into the pair of runs around the SuperSpecial at the end of the day.

It was Spaniard Sordo who suddenly found some speed to beat Hirvonen over both runs and take third spot – leaving him on-course for his first gravel podium

Sordo said: "It's okay. I'm happy with the traction from the car, but tomorrow is a big day for me. The speed is not bad, I have more confidence with the car."

Hirvonen did manage to hold off Subaru driver Atkinson though as the Australian first suffered a boost problem and was then driven into a ditch by a civilian car on a road section.

Behind them, Manfred Stohl remained in sixth place in his Kronos Citroen with the Stobart Fords of Jari-Matti Latvala and Matthew Wilson rounding out the points scorers.

A mechanical problem on stage 14 put Ford privateer Gareth MacHale out of ninth place and allowed Hening Solberg to make it three Stobart cars in a row after moving up three places throughout the afternoon – despite suffering more than most with the dust on the stages.

Mark Higgins completed the top ten in his Group N-leading Mitsubishi.