Rally Sweden: Sebastien Ogier storms away
Volkswagen's Sebastien Ogier extended his Rally Sweden lead to 32 seconds over his former Citroen team-mate Sebastien Loeb by winning all three stages on the event's second loop
Loeb, unable to keep in touch with the VW driver's pace, has been battling with Ogier's team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala; the nine-time world champion edging ahead back into second place on Vargasen.
Latvala had previously led Loeb by a hundredth of a second, but an intercom failure on his Polo R WRC hampered his progress and let Loeb through by 1.5s on the following stage.
As they battled, Ogier coped best with the conditions. He now holds an almost assured overnight lead, with just the Karlstad superspecial stage to run this evening.
Qatar M-Sport's Mads Ostberg is poised to join the second-place battle in fourth, just nine seconds behind Latvala, and closing on the pair ahead following his morning dramas.
Ostberg's team-mate Evgeny Novikov is fifth, 29s behind the Norwegian and just over a minute off the rally lead. He has pushed star local rookie Pontus Tidemand back down to sixth.
Citroen's Dani Sordo lost five minutes with an off-stage excursion on SS6, meaning Loeb is now the only Citroen driver who can score major points, given the additional problems suffered by both Sordo and Mikko Hirvonen.
Leading positions after SS7: Pos Driver Team/Car Time/Gap 1. Sebastien Ogier VW 1h14m23.1s 2. Sebastien Loeb Citroen + 32.2s 3. Jari-Matti Latvala VW + 33.7s 4. Mads Ostberg Qatar M-Sport Ford + 42.8s 5. Evgeny Novikov Qatar M-Sport Ford + 1m12.1s 6. Pontus Tidemand PTM Ford + 1m22.6s 7. Juho Hanninen Qatar M-Sport Ford + 1m48.7s 8. Thierry Neuville Qatar M-Sport Ford + 2m01.3s 9. Henning Solberg M-Sport Ford + 3m23.9s 10. Martin Prokop Czech Ford + 4m39.9s
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