SS10: Latvala in flying form

Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team’s Jari-Matti Latvala opened the first afternoon of competition on the Jordan Rally by racing through the repeat run of the Suwayma stage over seven seconds faster than his time from this morning. He arrived at the flying finish dramatically, trailing tape from his front wing.

“On maybe the third corner of the stage some tape was hanging loose from the barrier and my wing caught it,” he said. “I was really annoyed sometimes because it was covering the windscreen. I didn’t go off the road; it was just loose.”

Sebastien Ogier was just 1.2 seconds adrift in his Citroen Total World Rally Team DS3 WRC, extending his overall lead only marginally. He may not have done enough to take a secure grip on the lead going into the long final stage of the day.

“It was good - a very fast stage, nice to drive,” said Ogier. “I’m going to continue like this and see how the gap is going.”

Ogier’s team-mate, Sebastien Loeb, was again in sparkling form, conquering the disadvantage of running second on the road to clock a time 0.3 seconds slower than his team-mate. It was good enough to move him up to second place overall, ahead of Latvala and just 7.7 seconds behind Ogier.

“I was a little bit over the limit sometimes,” admitted Loeb. “I made a few mistakes near the end where I went wide and lost a bit of time.”

Mikko Hirvonen, running first on the road in his Fiesta RS WRC, was five seconds faster than he was this morning as he continued to fight a rearguard action against the loose surface.

“I feel like I’ve gone as fast as I can go on this stage,” he said. “I don’t want to lose much more time this afternoon, but we’ll see what happens at the end of the day, there may be some tactics although I may be too far behind.”

Petter Solberg looked unperturbed by finishing nine seconds off the fastest time, even though it dropped him to fourth overall behind Ogier, Loeb and Latvala. With 42 seconds separating him and Hirvonen in fifth place, Solberg can afford to run relatively conservatively and still earn a tactically advantageous position in the starting order tomorrow.

“It looks like the others are taking a big cut in there somewhere and I’ve just missed it,” he said at the end of the stage.

Once again Kimi Raikkonen was quick on the harder surface of this stage, finishing 5.5 seconds off Solberg’s pace. He moves up to seventh overall thanks to the retirement of the M-Sport Stobart Ford of Mads Ostberg, who halted with suspected transmission failure during the stage.

Ostberg’s team-mate Matthew Wilson was happier with his performance than he had been this morning, posting a time 1.4 seconds off Raikkonen’s and going up a place to sixth overall thanks to Ostberg’s retirement.

Standings after SS10: