Sébastien Loeb has again dominated during the second day of ADAC Rallye Deutschland, the 10th round of the FIA World Rally Championship. The Citroën C4 driver won all but one of the eight stages and takes a comfortable 40.3 second lead into the final day of competition on Sunday. Second position remains closely fought, but Loeb’s team-mate Dani Sordo moved up the leaderboard this morning to claim the position. In the final stage, François Duval (Stobart Ford) also climbed up to third, ahead of Mikko Hirvonen (BP Ford)

 

Today’s route covered two identical loops of four stages, taking the crews over the Baumholder military training area and across the flowing Saarland roads. Loeb once again seems unbeatable and despite pressure from behind, the Frenchman looks set to record his seventh consecutive victory on Rallye Deutschland. Team-mate Sordo moved into second position on the first stage this morning, when Hirvonen briefly went off the road. The duo have however been neck and neck all day, but Hirvonen slipped behind Duval when he punctured on the final stage of the day. They are however split by only 3.9 seconds.

 

Both are comfortably ahead of the Subarus, the team challenge led by Petter Solberg in fifth. Behind Chris Atkinson, Henning Solberg (Ford Focus) has moved into seventh after a trouble-free day and Urmo Aava (Citroën C4) rounds off the top eight. Jari-Matti Latvala (BP Ford) suffered more disappointment when he went off the road in stage nine. A slight error in the Finn’s pace notes saw him off the road and into a field, where the car then rolled lightly after hitting a ditch. He holds ninth overnight.

 

Rallye Deutschland - Results after Day 2

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Sébastien Loeb/Daniel Elena Dani Sordo/Marc Marti François Duval/Patrick Pivato Mikko Hirvonen/Jarmo Lehtinen Petter Solberg/Phil Mills Chris Atkinson/Stéphane Prévot Henning Solberg/Cato Menkerud Urmo Aava/Kuldar Sikk

Citroën C4 WRC Citroën C4 WRC Ford Focus RS WRC Ford Focus RS WRC Subaru Impreza WRC 2008 Subaru Impreza WRC 2008 Ford Focus RS WRC Citroën C4 WRC

2 hr 32 min 22.6sec 2 hr 33 min 02.9sec 2 hr 34 min 06.9sec 2 hr 34 min 10.8sec 2 hr 34 min 51.3sec 2 hr 35 min 54.7sec 2 hr 36 min 56.0sec 2 hr 37 min 19.7sec

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