Fifth leader in Portugal

In still summery conditions, Sébastien Loeb took full advantage of his third position on the road to set three consecutive best times and take the lead of the rally : “Starting the day in third position, 18 seconds behind the leader, we knew we were in a good position. We attacked a lot again to take the advantage. The scanning is quite difficult to understand, you can tell the difference in certain portions and not in others. Five or six seconds will not be enough for tomorrow. The minimum would be to have twenty. We will therefore continue to attack in the afternoon. »

“I lost fifteen seconds in the second special without understanding why,” replies Mikko Hirvonen. “The surface was very loose. I'm still going to sweep this afternoon but I think I'll waste less time. I should not lose more than fifteen seconds to be in a good position for tomorrow. »

Guilty of a small mistake, Dani Sordo is almost forty seconds behind. The Spaniard may have lost any chance of winning this morning: “Everything was going very well until the last special. After a left curve on a sky, there was a very slow right turn. Marc told me a lot of notes and I braked a little late. We went straight ahead which cost us a little time. We will continue to attack but the stages are very difficult. »

Petter Solberg maintains fourth position ahead of Matthew Wilson, Henning Solberg, Mads Ostberg and Evgeny Novikov, eighth after having a puncture on SS9.

The morning was marked by the withdrawals of Marcus Grönholm and Sébastien Ogier, respectively fourth and sixth last night.