At the end of the second leg of Corona Rally Mexico, reigning FIA World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb has snatched the lead from Petter Solberg and takes a comfortable 37.7 second advantage into the final leg of the third round of the FIA World Rally Championship. The French Citroën Xsara driver, who has powered up the leaderboard from third position, claimed six of today’s seven stage victories and looks set to take his first win of the season.

Solberg, who started the day with a 4.8 second lead, traded positions with Loeb this morning, but in the repeated stages this afternoon the Subaru driver lost time with tyre wear problems and then dropped 23.7 seconds to Loeb when the power steering broke in the penultimate stage. A spin in the final super special stage leaves him trailing, but the Norwegian has not given up the fight, despite feeling unwell.

Third position is held by Manfred Stohl (Peugeot 307 WRC), although the Austrian is nearly four minutes adrift of the overnight lead. Mikko Hirvonen, who started the day in second position, rolled out of contention in the first stage and Championship leader Marcus Grönholm, who re-started today’s leg under permitted regulations, has powered from an overnight 22nd to 11th overall this evening

Corona Rally Mexico – Results after Leg 2

1	Sébastien Loeb/Daniel Elena	Citroën Xsara WRC	3 hr 07 min 57.1sec
2	Petter Solberg/Phil Mills	Subaru Impreza WRC	3 hr 08 min 34.8sec
3	Manfred Stohl/Ilka Minor	Peugeot 307 WRC	3 hr 11 min 46.8sec
4	Daniel Sordo/Marc Marti	Citroën Xsara WRC	3 hr 12 min 19.0sec
5	Henning Solberg/Cato Menkerud	Peugeot 307 WRC	3 hr 18 min 17.9sec
6	Gareth MacHale/Paul Nagle	Ford Focus RS WRC	3 hr 21 min 09.8sec

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