Saturday midday wrap: Loeb heads Finland thriller

The battle for first place on Neste Oil Rally Finland will go down to the wire with less than 10 seconds separating Citroen factory drivers Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen starting the final two stages of the FIA World Rally Championship round.

Loeb, the eight-time world champion, holds the advantage over local hero Hirvonen heading to the two runs of the ultra-fast 33.01-kilometre Ouninpohja test, the first of which goes live at 15:37hrs local time.

If Loeb can maintain his lead then he will complete a Finland treble and extend his margin in the WRC drivers’ standings. However, he concedes his team-mate Hirvonen will be a huge threat on the final brace of stages.

“For sure Ouninpohja is a really specific stage, really fast and for the Finnish specialists so I will see if I am Finnish or French,” said Loeb. “The goal now is to continue leading and hopefully keep my position.”

Hirvonen, who lost precious seconds when he nudged a tree on this morning’s opening Surkee stage, has never won a world championship rally for Citroen, which is allowing its works pilots to fight it out for top spot. He is 9.4s behind Loeb and said: “I want to win the rally and I will try to the end.”

Jari-Matti Latvala heads the Ford charge in third with Petter Solberg fourth. Mads Ostberg had been fifth in his privateer Fiesta but a mechanical failure on the second Leustu stage has dropped him to sixth behind Ott Tanak.

Matti Rantanen demoted Jari Ketomaa for seventh when the latter’s Fiesta picked up a front-left puncture on stage 15. Martin Prokop is ninth with Sebastien Ogier up to 10th after Ken Block retired from the final points-paying position when a cross member broke following a heavy landing on stage 14.

Armindo Araujo dropped back in the battle to finish as the leading MINI John Cooper Works WRC driver after a trip into a ditch left his car with damaged suspension on stage 16 and put him behind Riku Tahko.

Craig Breen heads a close battle for Super 2000 World Rally Championship honours with P-G Andersson slipping 13.3s behind following a reported driveshaft failure on the last stage prior to service in Jyvaskyla.

Elfyn Evans continues to lead the FIA WRC Academy as a close fight for third rages between Brendan Reeves and Timo van der Marel.

The competitive action draws to a close with the second run of Ouninpohja at 18:00hrs local time. It counts as the Power Stage, which awards bonus points to the fastest three drivers. The finish is scheduled for 21:00hrs in Jyvaskyla’s Paviljonki centre.