Friday wrap: Loeb tops New Zealand leaderboard

Frenchman Sebastien Loeb leads his Citroen Total World Rally team-mate Mikko Hirvonen by 4s in a Citroen DS3 WRC following the first full day of action at Brother Rally New Zealand, round seven of the 2012 FIA World Rally Championship.

Ford World Rally Team’s Jari-Matti Latvala was lying third until the Finnish driver collided with a fence on stage 7 and lost over four minutes trying to get his Ford Fiesta RS WRC back on the road. The incident saw Latvala drop back to ninth.

“I’m really, really disappointed. I can’t remember being this disappointed for a long time,” explained a disheartened Latvala.

“It was a combination left-right corner, but everyone had been cutting there so I went for the cut as well and the cars in front must have made a hole on the inside and the front-right wheel touched the hole and spun the car into a wire fence. The wire went into the front wheel and we couldn’t move anywhere. We had to wait until the farmer came with some side cutters but by that time I had lost four minutes," added the 27-year-old.

Team-mate Petter Solberg had an equally troubled day after the Norwegian lost over a minute this morning after opting for hard compound Michelin tyres. He finishes the day fourth overall.

“The soft tyre choice was definitely the best for this morning, and my choice to run second on the road seemed to work well given the road conditions,” explained rally leader Loeb. “But there is still a long way to go and tomorrow’s stages are more technical than today. The long stage tomorrow [Girls High School] has a lot of camber, and it is high speed. This is not an easy rally but we will see what happens tomorrow.”

After a trouble-free day in an M-Sport run Ford Fiesta RS WRC, Russia’s Evgeny Novikov is third. Team-mate Ott Tanak is fifth in a similar car, 7.7s adrift of Solberg in fourth.

Competing in New Zealand for the first time, Thierry Neuville is sixth for the Citroen Junior World Rally Team. The Belgian driver reported problems with his pacenotes led to a spin during stage 3 but a drama-free afternoon saw Neuville finish the day 31s behind Estonia’s Tanak.

MINI WRC Team’s Dani Sordo struggled to find grip after a wrong decision to use hard compound tyres on the opening loop, but a clear afternoon pass saw the driver move up into seventh.

Another driver to fall foul of the wrong tyre choice was America’s Ken Block. Block was disappointed with the choice, and struggled further being out of the Ford Fiesta RS WRC since Rally Mexico. But a change to soft compound tyres for the afternoon loop saw the American win a day-long battle for 10th place with Austria’s Manfred Stohl.

Tomorrow’s action will commence at 09:13hrs local time with the 17.61-kilometre Batley stage.