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Citroen Total team driver Sebastien Loeb will take a lead of 26.8 seconds into Sunday's final day of Rally Portugal after a clean sweep of six stage wins today.
Loeb restarted this morning in third place, and capitalised on a start position of third on the road to catapult into the lead on the day's second test. He pulled further ahead with every kilometer that followed.
As rally leader, Loeb will be first to tackle Sunday's final five stages and will face the worst of the loose and dusty road conditions. But at the end of today's final stage the Frenchman felt he couldn't have wished for a better comfort margin.
Hirvonen is second, ahead of Dani Sordo's C4 Citroen. Petter Solberg rounded off the top five places in his 2005 specification Citroen Xsara - a car estimated to have 10 per cent less power than his manufacturer team rivals.
Briton Matthew Wilson ended the day sixth, but only just, following a sustained attack from his Stobart Ford team-mate Henning Solberg. The Norwegian whittled the gap to Wilson from 25 seconds after SS8, to 0.9 seconds at the end of the day.
Citroen Total team driver Sebastien Loeb will take a lead of 26.8 seconds into Sunday's final day of Rally Portugal after a clean sweep of six stage wins today.
Loeb restarted this morning in third place, and capitalised on a start position of third on the road to catapult into the lead on the day's second test. He pulled further ahead with every kilometer that followed.
As rally leader, Loeb will be first to tackle Sunday's final five stages and will face the worst of the loose and dusty road conditions. But at the end of today's final stage the Frenchman felt he couldn't have wished for a better comfort margin.
Hirvonen is second, ahead of Dani Sordo's C4 Citroen. Petter Solberg rounded off the top five places in his 2005 specification Citroen Xsara - a car estimated to have 10 per cent less power than his manufacturer team rivals.
Briton Matthew Wilson ended the day sixth, but only just, following a sustained attack from his Stobart Ford team-mate Henning Solberg. The Norwegian whittled the gap to Wilson from 25 seconds after SS8, to 0.9 seconds at the end of the day.