Citroen's Sebastien Loeb has said that he gave it everything in final stage on Saturday, something that allowed him to overhaul Marcus Gronholm and take top spot in New Zealand ahead of the third and final day.

Loeb piled the pressure on his chief championship rival all day long, cutting the margin right back from 13 seconds to 4 prior to the mid-day halt.

In the end he had to wait until SS11 though to go in front and he will now take a slender 1.7 second cushion into Sunday's concluding leg.

"As my tyres reached their ideal working temperature, my split times began to improve and I ended up setting the fastest time on SS10 [even though I was behind for most of the test],” he said after the second loop.

“I then gave it everything I had over the day's last stage and we also won that to take the lead.

“I took perhaps a bit too much risk but okay we are here. I made a few mistakes but we are still on the road – just. This time it was very lucky but I am happy to be here. I pushed really hard and couldn't do better.

“We really weren't sure whether we had made the best tyre choice - but we knew, however, that we had made a better choice than that of our rivals.

"I am pleased with our day and our C4 performed faultlessly. That said, the gap is still very small and I can only presume it won't be a very restful Sunday!"

Asked about the first loop, Seb noted that while he knew his tyre choice might not work for SS7, he was convinced it would pay dividends in SS8, the 31.58 kilometre dash through Franklin and indeed it did – as he was 11.3 seconds quicker than Gronholm.

"Thanks to the good information I was given by Citroen Sport, we decided to go for medium compound BFGoodrich tyres this morning whereas our rivals opted for a softer choice,” he continued.

“I knew I wouldn't have an easy time on SS7 which was muddy and twisty, but I believed I could be quicker on SS6 and SS8.