Friday wrap: Loeb heads tight fight in Greece

Sebastien Loeb will start day two of the Acropolis Rally in Greece leading Jari-Matti Latvala by a margin of 6.5s following a close battle for glory on round six of the FIA World Rally Championship powered by Nokia.

Citroen ace Loeb started Friday’s punishing route of eight stages around the Gulf of Corinth early this morning trailing overnight leader Jari-Matti Latvala by 2.8s. After initially struggling to peg back his rival - the Ford driver was quickest on stages two and three - Loeb arrived at the first remote service halt in Itea in the lead after an overshoot on stage four cost Latvala precious seconds.

With Latvala struggling for grip through the damp stages five and six, Loeb was able to grow his overall advantage to 10.1s by the time the crews returned to Itea this afternoon. Although Latvala went fastest on stage seven, Loeb appeared to be controlling his lead only to drop time on stage nine in dust clouds created by several drivers running ahead of him on the road suffering problems.

“We are leading so that’s the most important thing,” said the eight-time world champion. “The feeling was okay, I’ve done no mistake until the last one where there was a lot of dust and I did a few mistakes at the end. Apart from the last one we had a good day.”

Latvala, whose opening stage win on Thursday evening was six weeks to the day since he broke his left collarbone falling while cross-country skiing, reported only a small amount of discomfort from his injury, which has still yet to completely heal.

“It’s been a reasonable good day,” said the Finn. “I was not doing so well on stages five and six but I had a good fight in the afternoon trying to catch Loeb. I am fighting but it’s only tenths of a second I’m gaining.”

Petter Solberg completes the provisional podium in his Fiesta after a scare on stage six, the uphill Drossohori test, when his car suffered a heavy impact in a compression and sustained bent rear suspension. “It was a huge shock,” said the Norwegian. “We broke the left-wheel rim and got a puncture. I thought it might be over but we were okay. Tomorrow is a long day and anything can still happen.”

Citroen’s Mikko Hirvonen is fourth following a puncture on Friday’s final test with Evgeny Novikov fifth overnight for the M-Sport Ford World Rally Team despite myriad mechanical problems during the day. Martin Prokop is sixth following a wild ride through a ditch on stage six, with Nasser Al-Attiyah seventh in his Qatar World Rally Team Citroen. Mads Ostberg is eighth after he briefly got stuck going off the road on stage nine and dropped two places.

Thierry Neuville, who has been adopting a cautious approach all day in his Citroen, had been in the top 10 only to suffer a broken driveshaft on the final test. He will start Saturday’s stages in 11th overall behind the flying Volkswagen Motorsport Skoda Fabia Super 2000s of Sebastien Ogier and Andreas Mikkelsen. Armindo Araujo is the top MINI John Cooper Works WRC runner in 12th place with team-mate Paulo Nobre in 16th having spent the day opening the road by running at the head of the field.

Brazil World Rally Team’s Daniel Oliveira was forced to retire from the day when his co-driver, Carlos Magalhaes, fell ill on Friday morning. Ott Tanak dropped out from seventh position with car damage.