SS3: Loeb fights back

The tense early battle for the Brother Rally New Zealand lead took another twist on stage three, Te Akau South, as Sebastien Loeb went quickest and inched closer to his Citroen team-mate Mikko Hirvonen.

As had been the case on the previous stage, the roads were wet and muddy in places, meaning running early in the order was no disadvantage for the Citroens - but neither was it really damp enough to harm Jari-Matti Latvala’s pace as the Ford driver came through at the tail of the World Rally Car field.

Loeb was quickest by 1.7 seconds over Latvala and 3.4s ahead of stage-opener Hirvonen, bringing the world champion to within 7.5s of his rally-leading Finnish team-mate. Latvala is only 2.3s further back in third.

There was a change for fourth place as Thierry Neuville lost several seconds when he spun his Qatar World Rally Team Citroen. That error by Neuville and a quick time from the Russian elevated Evgeny Novikov into fourth, ahead of his M-Sport Ford team-mate Ott Tanak.

Frustration continued for Petter Solberg (Ford) on his hard tyres, as another relatively slow time left him still seventh in the overall order. The Norwegian is running 19s ahead of Dani Sordo’s Prodrive WRC Team Mini, which is also having a tough time on the harder rubber.

There a major change in the Super 2000 World Rally Championship, as leader P-G Andersson retired, handing the top spot to Haydon Paddon.

The first WRC contender to hit significant trouble was Jari Ketomaa, who was delayed by a puncture.