"I gave it everything I could this afternoon, but it wasn't enough. We failed to recover the ground lost to our rivals this morning, but we will be fifth on the road tomorrow and I have every intention of making the most of having a cleaner line to try to finish on the podium," he vowed.
"We haven't thrown in the towel at all. There are five more stages to come and the situation can still be reversed."
Further down the order,
Chris Atkinson came in sixth, now over a minute off Sordo, while
Henning Solberg is seventh - another 90 seconds further back - and
Urmo Aava is eighth and on course for the final drivers' point in his privately entered PH-Sport-run C4 WRC.
Suzuki's Per-Gunnar Andersson is just outside the points in ninth, his best efforts today in the SX4 WRC two eighth quickest times.
Petter Solberg completes the top ten after a difficult day. 'Hollywood' had finished leg one in third, but slipped down to seventh in the opening test when he lost around 20-30 seconds. Worse was to come however, and when he had to stop and change a puncture in SS8, he lost more time - around 5 minutes. Although his times were a lot better in the afternoon and he finished with a fifth fastest time in SS12, he now lies over 7 minutes off the lead.
Of the rest
Matthew Wilson is eleventh and while he was happier with the set-up, he failed to set any top ten times. Mads Ostberg trails the Brit, 19.9 seconds further back, followed by
Federico Villagra and
Conrad Rautenbach in 13th and 14th respectively.
In the Junior World Rally Championhips category Michal Kosciuszko and Martin Prokop are engaged in a fierce fight for the class honours, with the former ending the day fractionally in front in his Suzuki Swift S1600. Alessandro Bettega completes the JWRC provisional podium, with Shaun Gallagher and Aaron Burkart fourth and fifth.
In terms of retirees
Toni Gardemeister was most noticeably casualty, going out after the penultimate stage with rear suspension problems. The Finn hopes to re-start on day three, but that has still to be confirmed by
Suzuki.
