BP Ford's
Mikko Hirvonen remains in control on the Wales Rally GB following the opening loop on Saturday.
Mikko began the day nearly 40 seconds up on his team-mate Marcus Gronholm and while he had a bit of a slow start and was only fourth fastest in SS7, he bounced back in SS8 and SS9, posting two second fastest times.
He thus returned to the mid-day service in Swansea still comfortably in front, with a 32.6 seconds cushion over his illustrious team-mate.
With Hirvonen already easing off a bit though and focusing on winning, it was left to fellow Ford runner,
Jari-Matti Latvala to set the pace.
Having gone out on the final stage on Friday, the
Stobart man re-started under the SupeRally on day 2 and was quickest in every single test as he tried to haul himself back up into contention. Having lost so much time though, he didn't make up that much ground and he finished in 12th place post-SS9, having started the day in 15th.
Sebastien Loeb meanwhile continues to drive with his sights firmly set on getting to the finish and scoring enough points to take his fourth drivers' title.
He now lies a further 12 seconds behind Gronholm, the gap going up from 18 seconds to 30 after Halfway 1, but with
Petter Solberg more than a minute back in P4, the Frenchman looks well on course to take the final place on the podium.
'Hollywood' lost a good 20-30 seconds with a spin on SS7 this morning and that allowed
Daniel Sordo to close the gap somewhat, he is still however 30 seconds down in his C4 WRC.
Further down the order,
Matthew Wilson lost out to
Chris Atkinson on the very first test of the day and dropped from sixth to seventh. The Englishman though has kept in touch and the difference is currently just 3.1 seconds with everything still to fight for.
OMV Kronos
Citroen's Manfred Stohl completes the provisional points' scorers, followed by
Subaru ‘third' driver, Xavier Pons and Skoda privateer, Jan Kopecky.
Of the rest, Mads Ostberg is just outside the top ten in eleventh, with Latvala 12th, Munchi's team leader, Luis-Perez Companc 13th, Andreas Mikkelsen 14th and Guy Wilks 15th.
