Stage winner Latvala closes in on the lead

Jari-Matti Latvala bagged his first stage win of the rally on SS6 and narrowed the gap on overall leader Petter Solberg to just one-tenth of a second.

Latvala, carrying the hopes of the BP Ford Abu Dhabi squad following his team-mate’s earlier retirement, was 1.2sec quicker than Solberg through the 24km Lankamaa. At the stage end, Solberg said he wasn’t worried by Latvala’s pace, but was keeping a close eye on his split times.

Sebastien Loeb dropped another place in the standings to 6th overall. The Frenchman said he had driven well but was being disadvantaged by running as first car though the stage and cleaning the surface of loose gravel.

Khalid Al Qassimi retired from the day after rolling his Ford Focus RS WRC at the 23.2km mark. Khalid retired at exactly the same spot where Petter Solberg rolled his Ford Focus WRC in 2000.