Saturday midday wrap: Latvala keeps Hirvonen at bay

Jari-Matti Latvala kept the competition at bay through the second morning of Rally Sweden - but Mikko Hirvonen certainly has not given up hope of victory.

After a nip-and-tuck battle through the loop’s four stages, the former Ford team-mates headed for the midday service 18.6 seconds apart.

As he did yesterday, Latvala has been focusing on keeping things tidy - calming his style on stages where in previous years he had been prone to brushing the snow banks too much, while Hirvonen felt he was getting quicker and quicker with every kilometre in the Citroen DS3 WRC.

Latvala said: "The pressure is on, but it’s better this way. It’s a big fight. This afternoon is now very important."

Friday ended with Latvala’s Ford team-mate Petter Solberg snapping at Hirvonen’s heels, but the 2003 champion was not able to match the two leaders’ pace this morning and is now 21.3s away from second place and under pressure from behind.

Mads Ostberg may have been struggling with an unbalanced Adapta Ford after a puncture leaving service forced him to run a right-side tyre on the car’s left rear, but that hasn’t stopped him chipping away at Solberg’s advantage and getting the gap down to seven seconds.

Evgeny Novikov is a lonely fifth but still wary of Sebastien Loeb charging up from behind, although a spin on stage 12 meant the Citroen driver has not yet caught Henning Solberg (Go Fast Energy Ford) for sixth.

"It’s not so fun to drive in this situation, but it’s like that," Loeb admitted. "We have to try and score some points. You cannot win every time. Now I just have to think of the championship and get the best possible result we can do."

Quiet mornings for Patrik Sandell (MINI), Martin Prokop (Czech National Ford) and Eyvind Brynildsen (Adapta Ford) have kept the trio on course for the final points. With Brynildsen’s Friday afternoon transmission issue resolved, he is now a comfortable distance ahead of the two Volkswagen Motorsport Skodas of Sebastien Ogier and Andreas Mikkelsen. Ogier was slightly delayed by a puncture this morning but remains ahead of his team-mate.

Ott Tanak’s tough weekend got worse still when he spent 21 minutes stuck in a snowy ditch on stage 12, but when on the road the M-Sport Ford driver has been very, very fast - especially considering he is second on the road - and was quickest of all on the short Hagfors Sprint stage.