Latvala leads from the front

Early rain in Jyvaskyla played into the hands of rally leader Jari-Matti Latvala, who found more grip on Saturday’s opening gravel stage than he had expected running first on the road.

The Ford Focus RS WRC driver extended his lead over Petter Solberg from 9.1sec to 12.2sec, helped in part by a bad start from the Norwegian who said he didn’t wake up until the 6km point.

Sebastien Ogier was the stage winner and took a big bite out of the gap to Petter. Heading to SS13, the gap between them was down to 8.6sec.

Citroen Junior Team driver Kimi Raikkonen lost around nine minutes when he went off the road 2km from the start. The Finn got his C4 WRC stuck on a bank and had to wait for spectators to push it back onto the road.