Sunday midday wrap: Loeb in control

Sebastien Loeb is three stages away from winning Philips Rally Argentina following a controlled drive over Sunday morning’s trio of stages, which he completed with an advantage of 1.3s over Citroen team-mate Mikko Hirvonen.

Loeb, who is chasing his 70th victory in the FIA World Rally Championship powered by Nokia, has adopted a risk-free strategy in the DS3 WRC he shares with co-driver Daniel Elena.

Such has been Loeb’s calm approach on day three that Hirvonen was able to close to within 0.2s of the eight-time world champion after 15 stages. However, Loeb insists he was simply preserving his tyres over the demanding gravel stages in the knowledge that Hirvonen is under orders to maintain position in second place.

“It was important not to take big risks and destroy the tyres,” said Loeb. “I have been driving very smoothly and for the moment it’s going perfectly. The cars are very good, we have more stages to go but we will try to do the same.”

Ford stand-in Dani Sordo continues to occupy third overall despite a spin on Sunday’s opening 65.74-kilometre stage, the longest in the world championship. Mads Ostberg is fourth in a similar Fiesta RS WRC with Martin Prokop fifth.

Thierry Neuville has climbed to sixth overall in his Citroen Junior World Rally Team entry with Volkswagen Motorsport’s Sebastien Ogier seventh and Petter Solberg climbing to eighth for the factory Ford squad after the Norwegian went fastest on all three stages this morning.

Volkswagen driver Andreas Mikkelsen had been in the fight for sixth only for a damper failure to trigger his exit on Mina Clavero/Giulio Cesare.

Armindo Araujo is ninth for WRC Team MINI Portugal with Evgeny Novikov moving up to 10th in a M-Sport Fiesta.

Brazil World Rally Team’s Daniel Oliveira was withdrawn before the start of day three with engine failure in his Fiesta.

Benito Guerra heads the Production Car World Rally Championship runners after overnight leader Nicolas Fuchs lost ground with turbo, brake and clutch issues. Valeriy Gorban, in third, experienced a gearbox oil leak at the end of stage 16, while Marcos Ligato has been slowed by powersteering failure.

Ott Tanak is running first on the road in his M-Sport Fiesta. The Estonian reported slippery conditions following overnight frost and some patches of fog. Thousands of fans are lining the stages in the Traslasierra mountains.

Stage 17, the second run over the famous Mina Clavero/Giulio Cesare test, gets underway at 14:07hrs local time.