Loeb wraps 2nd leg with victory on SS10, Sordo retakes second, Ogier out!

Cautious approach to day’s final stage didn’t pay off for Ford’s Petter Solberg, he went over 6 seconds slower than Dani Sordo in Mini and lost second place in overall classification. Meanwhile, Sebastien Loeb aims to increase his lead tomorrow, especially with announced weather changes and possible snow on stages.

Biggest news of SS10 is retirement of Volkswagen ace Sebastien Ogier. According to still sparse information, Ogier had high speed crash and is out of rally.

Overall classification after SS10:

1. Loeb 2:45:56.9
2. Sordo +1:37.2
3. Solberg +1:40.9
4. Hirvonen +3:40.4
5. Novikov +3:51.5
6. Delecour +5.19.9
7. Campana +6:49.6
8. Tanak +7:00.6
9. Araujo +12:38.2
10. Prokop 12:49.0

“Really good, no problem at all. Now it looked more like a tarmac rally, feeling is good and we tried to push. We don’t know what the weather will be like tomorrow so we had to take advantage of today’s conditions. Tomorrow we might see some snow so we must keep the distance and keep pushing”, Sebastien Loeb.

“This was quite good stage, but I’m surprised at our performance on splits. I’m trying to drive clean and well, but times are oscillating a bit. Tomorrow weather could be difficult, but we will continue battling with Petter”, Dani Sordo.

“On some places there was lot of mud, we lost second place again but still long way to go. We’ll see about the snow tomorrow and we’ll take it as it comes”, Petter Solberg.

“This stage was really difficult, very slippery, lot of cuts and very narrow.”, Evgeny Novikov.

“I’m still learning the car, so that’s the main thing. Car is great, pacenotes are fine, but problem is me as on previous stages. I must improve and get into speed”, Mikko Hirvonen.