Citroen number two
Daniel Sordo has finished day two of the Jordan Rally as he started it, namely sitting at the top of leaderboard, after his two closest rivals purposely slowed in the final stage.
Sordo will now have the dubious 'honour' of running first on the road on Sunday and sweeping away the loose gravel, something that will give
Jari-Matti Latvala and
Mikko Hirvonen an advantage, especially on the first run through the stages.
Dani started the second leg 1.1 seconds up on his team-mate,
Sebastien Loeb and on the opening test, the 14.13 kilometre-run through Turkl 1, he slipped to P2, when the Frenchman set the pace, 5.1 seconds up on Jari-Matti Latala.
Loeb was again quickest in SS10, to increase his cushion from 8.1 seconds to 16.3 seconds. The four-time world champion continued in the same vein in SS11 too, taking his advantage to just over 30 seconds.
However disaster struck immediately after Shuna 1, when he was sidelined following a head-on collision with
Conrad Rautenbach's similar C4 WRC car on a two-way access road leading to and from the test. Nobody was injured but both cars retired and that put Dani back into the lead.
Although it was nip and tuck in SS12, Dani just edged out Latvala - by 0.3 seconds - and thus ended the loop fractionally ahead, with a 0.7 second lead heading into the 30-minute service at the Dead Sea.
In the afternoon Sordo immediately slipped behind Jari and Mikko when he was slowed by a left rear puncture, and he lost further ground in SS14 and SS15, ending Shuna 2 just over 10 seconds off the lead.
In the final test though the situation was reversed and with Jari and Mikko both easing off - although initially they claimed they had problems - Dani found himself back at the top, once again with an 8.5 second cushion over Latvala.
