Latvala flat out on SS 16

Ford’s Jari-Matti Latvala finally managed to put some more distance between himself and Mikko Hirvonen. Topping the timesheets on SS 16 Latvala was able to increase his lead to 23.6 seconds, helped by the fact that Hirvonen was only fourth fastest through the stage.

To complicate things further, Petter Solberg was very fast, just 2 seconds slower than Latvala on 16th test, and that brought him to 22.7 seconds behind Hirvonen, while at the same time increasing lead over fourthplaced Mads Ostberg. Latter did not particularly enjoy SS 16, setting 7th fastest time and dropping to 14.2 seconds behind Solberg in a bid to preserve tires for final two stages.

With aim to not only score “some points” but as many as possible, Sebastien Loeb is still pushing hard. Third fastest on SS 16, Loeb managed to get in front of Henning Solberg and now occupies sixth position overall with 40.6 seconds deficit to Evgeny Novikov.

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