Sunday midday wrap: Hirvonen concedes defeat

Jari-Matti Latvala just has to keep things steady through three more stages to kickstart his 2012 FIA World Rally Championship powered by Nokia title bid with Rally Sweden victory after his rival Mikko Hirvonen fell back on the final morning and admitted Latvala could not be caught.

Hirvonen had hoped a set-up change this morning would preserve the tyres on his Citroen DS3 WRC better, but instead it left him struggling to find confidence to really lean on the car. Latvala pulled away by seven seconds on the first stage alone, and afterwards Hirvonen conceded that his gallant push for victory was over and he would have to settle for second as he dropped over half a minute adrift.

"I’ll just try to save my tyres a little bit, keep my position and then try to attack on the Power Stage," he said.

Hirvonen added that he would keep an eye on the chasing Petter Solberg, but Latvala’s factory Ford team-mate looks far too busy trying to resist the Adapta Ford of Mads Ostberg to think about trying to hunt down Hirvonen. The charging Ostberg has inched a little closer to Solberg with every stage today and is now just 4.9 secnds behind.

"I’m trying my best," Solberg promised.

Unless anything dramatic happens on the final loop, Evgeny Novikov looks to have fifth place in the bag for M-Sport Ford. The Russian’s decision to keep pushing yesterday in the expectation that the recovering Sebastien Loeb would eventually be chasing his tail seems to have paid off. Even though Novikov had vowed he would rather crash out than lose fifth, having seen that Loeb was still 48s adrift with five stages to go, he started taking it easier and watching the splits, with Loeb admitting that he had no expectation of getting any higher than sixth now his battle for the spot with Go Fast Energy Ford’s Henning Solberg seemed resolved.

Another fight now settled is the tussle for eighth. Patrick Sandell had slipped back into Martin Prokop’s clutches when he accidentally left a radiator blank on his MINI yesterday when he should have removed it at the end of a road section, but a charge this morning has pulled Sandell 23s clear of the Czech National Ford.

"My MINI is perfect," Sandell declared.