Dueling Citroens fly on Radnor repeat

Fresh from the midday service, the leaders of Wales Rally GB pair resumed their fight for supremacy, with Sebastien Loeb quickest though the repeated Radnor stage and the chasing Petter Solberg, also in a Citroen C4 WRC, just 1.3sec behind.

At the end of the 14.78km section, Loeb’s lead overall stood at 3.8 seconds. “It’s okay - a good fight,” said the Frenchman. “The roads are drier and less tricky than earlier but they’re still very slippery. It’s tricky to judge the braking points, but it was okay.”

Solberg remained upbeat, despite a mistake near the end. “I went off at a junction but it’s okay - there’s no problem. I’m still fighting. I have to try, that’s what we’re here for!”

Ford driver Jari-Matti Latvala was third quickest, to edge closer to his team-mate Mikko Hirvonen’s third place.

Monster World Rally Team driver Ken Block dropped more than a minute to the leaders after his car picked up a mechanical problem. “It felt really good until about a third of the way through - then it sounds like we broke a broke a drive shaft or something. It’s really disappointing because there’s no way we can get any competitive times between now and the end of the day. I don’t know what we can do.”

Kimi Raikkonen also reported a problem. The Citroen Junior team driver said his C4 WRC had a broken left-hand front damper spring.

Overall standings after SS12: