Jari-Matti Latvala completes the top three and while he lost time with a puncture in SS2 and SS7, he was right up at the top of the leader-board for much of the day, setting the pace in SS3 and SS6. In the end he finished up 1.1 seconds off the lead having slowed at the end of SS9.
"The team strategy was to not be first in the order tomorrow," Jari explained. "It's not easy there in these conditions, I don't like it and I didn't want to be there. You need experience to perform that role well and I don't have that. The plan was to be in front of Mikko and I feel very satisfied tonight."
Gigi Galli and
Mikko Hirvonen rounded out the five, the latter having led for most of the day until he slowed before the finish of SS9 and watched almost 20 seconds pass before completing the test.
"It's a risk to do this because we haven't won anything yet and there are only two stages for Loeb to clean tomorrow, but these are better circumstances for me than being first on the road," said Mikko.
"If I had been leading tomorrow, I don't think I would have been able to keep him behind me because my 14sec advantage wouldn't have been enough. The plan now is to attack hard and build a big enough lead to take into the final day. I'm sure Loeb will fight hard, but I feel confident."
Galli, who was the only driver to win more than two stages - topping the times in SS4, SS5 and SS8, also took the same approach in SS9 as his Ford colleagues.
"It's been a long day today with more stages than what we are normally used to," said Gigi. "We had a problem getting the jack into the car today and weren't able to change the tyres between some stages. The second pass over the stages was quite hard as we had to find a good compromise between preserving the tyres and keeping a good speed but I think we did a good job. It seems that we are now in a perfect position for tomorrow."
