WRC: Sordo leads by small margin by the end of day two

From the World Rally Championship

The second full day of Repco Rally Australia came to an end Saturday night, in Australia, with the top three drivers, Dani Sordo, Sebastien Loeb and Mikko Hirvonen separated by an almost unbelievable margin of one-tenth of a second.

But while the leaderboard suggests that all three have roughly the same chance of taking victory on Sunday's final day showdown, the reality is that the Citroen pair should have a strategic advantage over Ford's team leader Hirvonen.

The main story of Saturday was the thrilling nip and tuck battle within a breakaway lead group of five drivers, led initially by the man first in today's running order, Jari-Matti Latvala of Ford.

Rain on the day's opening stage limited Latvala's handicap of opening the loose gravel roads, but as the roads soon dried out he struggled to keep the chasing pack behind, eventually losing the lead to Citroen C4 driver Loeb on the day's sixth test.

The turning point in Saturday's competition came two stages later, on SS23, when Loeb decided to give up an 11 second rally lead in favour of a better start position on Sunday.

A tactical slow down before the finish gifted the lead to Hirvonen, who has the unenviable position of stage opener and road sweeper for Sunday's decisive, and longest, day.

Sordo and Loeb both edged ahead of Hirvonen on the Super Special stages, leaving out front (just) as rally leader.

After starting today's competition jostling for the lead, WRC rising stars Latvala and Ogier ended it still battling one another, but more than 40sec adrift of the top three.

Ogier was first to drop out of the fight when he went off the road on SS22, while Latvala picked up a puncture on SS23. Latvala will start Sunday's competition in fourth place, with Ogier 1.8sec adrift in fifth.

Stobart Ford Team driver Henning Solberg holds sixth, 1min 56.2sec behind Ogier despite a crash on SS17 which cost him more than one minute and broke one of his fingers. Henning's team-mate Matthew Wilson is just eight-tenths of a second further back in seventh.

Federico Villagra of the Munchies Ford team is 1min 16.6sec behind Wilson in eighth place - the final points winning position.