SS6: Latvala loses first place

Sebastien Loeb has retaken the lead of RallyRACC-Rally de Espana by winning the day-closing Les Garrigues night stage as Jari-Matti Latvala’s hopes of victory were dealt a huge blow when he suffered a puncture.

Citroen DS3 WRC driver Loeb started the test 16 seconds behind Latvala’s Ford Fiesta RS WRC but moved in front when Latvala spun and then suffered a front-right puncture.

“I’m quite happy to be at the finish, especially in this one in the night,” said Loeb.

Latvala, who is now 30.6s adrift of Loeb, said: “It’s incredible difficult to drive in the darkness with the dust. We spun first and after that there was massive rocks on the road I couldn’t avoid. I hit the rocks and I’ve lost a lot of time. [My pace on Tarmac] is not going to be enough [tomorrow].”

Ford driver Mikko Hirvonen questioned the wisdom of running a mainly gravel stage in the dark. He said: “You couldn’t see anything in some places, even a gap of four minutes was not enough.”

Sebastien Ogier suffered an off-road moment at the five-kilometre mark in his Citroen but didn’t experience a significant time loss. “There was a lot of dust and we went a bit wide. It’s difficult to get motivation after my puncture [on stage five].”

Dani Sordo said he found it difficult to see in the dust in his MINI John Cooper Works WRC. The Spaniard lost more time when he stalled at a junction and has dropped behind Ogier to fifth.

Standings after SS6: