SS11: Loeb continues to pull away

Sebastien Loeb stretched his ADAC Rallye Deutschland lead to 1m42s on stage 11, although he was pipped to the stage win by another storming performance from Ford protege Ott Tanak.

FIA World Rally Championship leader Loeb insisted he was taking it easy, despite continuing to pull away from his nearest rivals.

"It was a bit muddy in two parts of the stage in the forest, but nothing really bad. I took it easy," said Loeb.

M-Sport driver Tanak following up his first asphalt stage win on stage 10 by repeating the performance on the re-run of Peterberg, beating Loeb by 0.2s. That stretched Tanak’s advantage over Mads Ostberg in their battle for fourth to 10.1s.

"It’s difficult and there were some quite nasty muddy places. But if we want to fight with Mads, we have to keep pushing," said Tanak.

"I have to finish as well. We are doing our best and I’m really happy with the car at the moment."

With a chance to close in on third place in the drivers’ standings, Ostberg said he was not willing to jeopardise his top-five finish by pushing too hard to beat Tanak.

"He’s going really fast. I’m not willing to take risks to follow him at the moment," Ostberg said. "He doesn’t have that much to lose. I have too much to lose. I will keep up the pressure but I’m not taking those risks."

The second-place battle swung back towards Jari-Matti Latvala on stage 10. His choice of soft tyres proved slightly more suitable for Peterberg, and he was able to bring his advantage over Mikko Hirvonen back up to 27.5s.

"It was muddy under the trees, but I don’t think I gained anything with the soft tyre," said Latvala. "It was better than the first stage, but it was still not the best choice. We played safe and now for the future we know how it is with this tyre."

Hirvonen said he was not going to go all-out to catch Latvala, but was keen to stay in touch with his former team-mate.

"I didn’t get anything out of him now. He’s doing his own steady pace as well," said Hirvonen. "Hopefully on the long stage I can take some time out of him so I can keep the pressure on him tomorrow."