Mixed fortunes for Citroen drivers

It’s good news for the Ford drivers this morning, with yet more snow and ice lighting up the Swedish stages, but it’s been a mixed morning for the Citroen drivers so far.

Sebastien Loeb spun on the second stage of the day, Sagen, meaning that he has not been able to make any significant progress up the leaderboard. His team mate Mikko Hirvonen has held onto second, but he has been steadily beaten by Jari-Matti Latvala over the first two stages.

“I just got the back end of the car on the bank, and this dragged the front end in and the car spun,” said Loeb. “For me, this rally is all about making progress but for the moment I am still behind the others, so it’s not going to be easy. There’s no chance to fight for the win now, but we can still get some good points here.”

However, Hirvonen is by no means giving up on the prospect of a third successive Swedish victory. The Finn struggled with stud retention in his tyres yesterday, but some set-up changes last night mean that he is much happier with the Citroen DS3 WRC today.

“Let’s wait and see what Jari-Matti’s response is: he needs to push as well. But I need to find a little bit more myself to push him hard. Today we’ve not had any problems and it’s going to be flat-out all the way: I don’t expect any problems with the tyres.”