Thursday midday wrap: Loeb out front

While Citroen’s Sebastien Loeb might hold a comfortable advantage in the battle for victory on Rallye Monte-Carlo, the fight for second place on the legendary World Rally Championship qualifier continues to intensify.

Ford’s Petter Solberg holds the place after Thursday’s opening three stages - held in mainly dry and increasingly mild conditions - but with Dani Sordo 3.7s behind for MINI the positions are likely to fluctuate for the remainder of the event.

Despite the close-nature of his battle with Sordo, Solberg insists he’s not taking any risks at the wheel of his Fiesta RS WRC. “We are driving sensible, that’s the only thing I can say,” said the Norwegian. “It’s so important to keep the position now.”

Sordo started day two in second place but slipped behind Solberg on stage five only to hit back on the very next run. However, he had no answer to his rival on stage seven: “I pushed really, really hard and did not make any mistakes. The time looks bad but I don’t know how.”

Loeb, whose overall advantage stands at 1m23.2s after seven stages, said he was satisfied with his performance this morning after going fastest on all three tests. “At the moment everything is fine and I have done the three best times,” said the eight-time world champion. “We had a good tyre choice for the first two stages but it was a compromise for the last one. I pushed this morning because I was comfortable to do so but this is Monte-Carlo and anything can happen.”

Finland’s Mikko Hirvonen is up to fourth for Citroen with Sebastien Ogier continuing to impress in his Super 2000-specification Skoda Fabia in fifth. Evgeny Novikov is sixth after dropping precious time damaging his M-Sport Fiesta’s steering on stage six when he nudged a bank.

Francois Delecour is seventh in his privateer Fiesta, despite not being able to hear co-driver Dominique Savignoni’s pace notes on the first two stages, which contributed to him sliding into a wall on stage six. The impact dislodged his car’s front spoiler and triggered a bout of understeer.

Pierre Campana is a solid eighth overall in the second factory MINI with Ott Tanak ninth and Super 2000 World Rally Championship leader PG Andersson tenth following a brief spin on stage seven, a rare error by the ace Swede.

Kevin Abbring is 11th in the second Volkswagen Motorsport Fabia with Matthew Wilson 12th for the Go Fast World Rally Team. Abbring picked up a front-left puncture seven kilometres from the end of stage seven, while Wilson reported a few set-up issues with his Fiesta.

Martin Prokop and Armindo Araujo are 13th and 14th respectively with WRC Academy Cup champion Craig Breen 15th and second in the SWRC battle. Henning Solberg is 16th but in trouble after his Go Fast Fiesta’s engine dropped onto three cylinders on stage seven.

Michal Kosciuszko heads the Production Car World Rally Championship battle in 18th overall.

Stage eight, the repeat of the 19.00-kilometre Labatie d’Andaure-Lalouvesc test, gets underway at 14:50hrs local time.