Sunday midday wrap: Loeb in control

Sebastien Loeb is three stages away from winning the Acropolis Rally for a third time after completing Sunday’s opening loop of two stages with a lead of more than two minutes on round six of the FIA World Rally Championship powered by Nokia.

Citroen driver Loeb had started the final day’s action leading Ford’s Petter Solberg by 10.2s in what was shaping up to be a thrilling battle for glory in Greece. But he is now 2m01.2s in front of his closest rival, the new second-placed driver Mikko Hirvonen, after Solberg tore the rear-left wheel from his Fiesta striking a tree.

With Solberg out, Loeb looks set to land WRC career victory number 71 providing he can get through the remaining trio of stages unscathed. “At the moment we have done the perfect race,” said Loeb. “I’m making no mistakes and the feeling with the car is very good.”

Hirvonen expressed his surprise at being second with Jari-Matti Latvala in third and under orders to not to take any more risks in an effort to secure the final podium place for the factory Ford team after he went fastest of all on today’s first test.

Mads Ostberg has climbed to fourth with Martin Prokop fifth, Thierry Neuville sixth and Sebastien Ogier seventh for Volkswagen Motorsport. Yazeed Al-Rajhi is on course for his maiden WRC points in a strong eighth overall in his Fiesta RRC. Ott Tanak is ninth with Abdulaziz Alkuwari also heading for his first WRC point as the leading MINI John Cooper Works WRC runner.

Solberg wasn’t the only driver to hit trouble on the opening Aghii Theodori stage with Nasser Al-Attiyah rolling his Qatar World Rally Team Citroen and damaging the radiator in the process. Evgeny Novikov and Daniel Oliveira also failed to make it through the run. Andreas Mikkelsen did complete the 19.42-kilometre test but damage to the left-rear wheel on his Skoda Fabia was too great to enable him to continue.

Nicolas Fuchs continues to dominate the Production Car World Rally Championship section in his Symtech Racing Subaru. The Peruvian leads Valeriy Gorban by 4m40s.

Stage 20, the second run through Aghii Theodori, goes live at 11:57hrs local time.