Loeb and Elena take the lead

Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena have the taken the lead on the second day of Rally Jordan. The Citroën Total World Rally Team crew is 25s in front of another C4 WRC driven by Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia. Dani Sordo and Marc Marti in fifth place are still in the running for a place on the podium.

The crews left the service park overlooking the Dead Sea in brilliant sunshine like the previous day. Their programme consisted of two loops of three stages: Suwayma, not very good for sweeping, Kafrain, part of which they had run on the day before, and Jordan River, the longest stage of the rally with 41,45 km.

Sébastien Loeb, who was around 30s behind Jari-Matti Latvala, pushed hard right from the start to close the gap. He set the best time in Suwayma 1 (SS8), and the six-time world champion drove home his point in Jordan River 1 (SS10). He pulled back 20s on Latvala and took second place closing the gap to the leader to 4.7s. When Loeb arrived back at the service park, he was still cautious: “We’ve made up most of the time we lost but I’m still a bit wary. The games of jockeying for positions at the start gave several drivers a good chance. I’ll keep on pushing this afternoon and we’ll see according to the gaps, if it’s worthwhile to be in the lead at the end of the day.”

Dani Sordo in fifth place continued to play his waiting game, and reckoned that there was still more to come: “The morning was rather difficult. We lost a little time in the first stage as we slowed where Hirvonen had stopped. The following one was tricky with a lot of overcrests. In Jordan River, the car was suffering from severe oversteer and I lost time with a spin. We’ll have a word with the team to see how we can improve the handling of my C4 WRC.”

After 30 minutes service, the crews set off to tackle the same stages. In SS11, Loeb drew level with Jari- Matti Latvala in the overall classification. In the following stage he began to open up a gap, and he pulled out a significant chunk of time in Jordan River. The driver of the no.1 C4 WRC arrived back at the Dead Sea service park with a lead of de 24.6s over Sébastien Ogier. “Finally, we decided not to slow down and we pushed right till the very end,” said Seb. “I don’t know yet if it’s the right choice. According to our calculations this gap will enable us to fight for the win, but it’s going to be tight, very tight!”

Dani Sordo finished the day with the second-quickest time in Jordan River 2 and was still lying fifth overall: “Seb’s pulled out a lead over the others but I’m less than fifteen seconds off second place. I’m still not yet feeling fully confident in this rally, but I’m concentrating on not making any mistakes. Our rivals have lost a car today and Citroën has a great opportunity to take the lead in the Manufacturers.”