Although Dani felt more comfortable in the afternoon he was unable to cut the deficit that much and finished 30.7 seconds adrift of the runners-up spot: “I'm going to try and stay in touch with Gronholm on Sunday to keep the pressure on him,” Dani vowed.
Further down the order,
Francois Duval set some strong times in his OMV Kronos-run
Citroen Xsara WRC, posting the third best time in Carbuccia and then two fourth best efforts in SS8 and SS9. The Belgian lost time though in the final two stages, due to gearbox and brake issues and was forced to retire on the final road section due mechanical problems.
Duval's problems pushed
Jari-Matti Latvala up to P4, 7 seconds up on
Petter Solberg, his nearest challenger. The
Stobart Ford man had a strong day and set three top five times, overhauling ‘Hollywood' for P5 in SS8 and then inching further away this afternoon.
Petter had problems with his tyres on the first loop and then continued to struggle with over-steer in SS10, SS11 and SS12 - just like on day 1. He remains in contention though for fourth and the battle between him and Latvala could be one of the highlights on the final day.
Further back,
Chris Atkinson and Xavier Pons are sixth and seventh, while Skoda privateer, Jan Kopkecy rounds out the provisional points' scorers, followed by Stobart Ford duo,
Henning Solberg and
Matthew Wilson.
Outside of the top ten, Dani Sola finished the day in eleventh with Brice Tirabassi 12th - both fighting over the Group N spoils in their Peugeot 207 S2000s.
In the
FIA Junior Rally Championship category, Martin Prokop leads in his Citroen C2 S1600 having benefited from the problems that hit
Suzuki duo,
Urmo Aava and Per-Gunnar Andersson in SS8.
