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Azores ERC: Kopecky extends lead over Breen on final morning

Jan Kopecky extended his lead over Craig Breen on the final morning of Rally Azores and now leads by 20.8 seconds with one loop of stages remaining

Kopecky started the day, the longest in terms of competitive mileage, with a 13.1s lead.

The Czech Skoda driver topped the first stage, Graminhais, beating Breen's Peugeot by 2.6s, but the Irishman retaliated on the next test, grabbing back six tenths of a second on Tronqueira, which was the first live Eurosport TV stage of the day.

Kopecky hit back immediately, setting the fastest time on the Sao Bras-Villa Franca stage, and then shared the best time on the superspecial with Citroen's Robert Kubica.

Kubica has recovered well since the roll on Friday, which prompted extensive suspension repairs overnight.

"It looks perfect from the inside..." he said of his battered DS3.

Breen lost 2.2s on the superspecial alone, and now has just the final loop of three stages to overhaul Kopecky. However, this boasts over 50kms, and the weather on the mid-Atlantic island continues to be variable.

Ricardo Moura's Skoda is third, 45.7s off the lead.

Kubica, is now up to sixth, 8m20s behind the leader. But his rise from eighth was due to two retirements: Bernado Sousa crashed his Ford Fiesta, and Jean Michel Raoux's Peugeot also went out.

Bruno Magalhaes and Jeremi Ancian are fourth and fifth respectively in Peugeots.

Pos Driver                 Team/Car               Time/Gap
 1. Jan Kopecky            Skoda                  1h46m43.9s
 2. Craig Breen            Sainteloc Peugeot      + 20.8s
 3. Ricardo Moura          Skoda                  + 45.7s
 4. Bruno Magalhaes        Delta Peugeot          + 1m52.9s
 5. Jeremi Ancian          Sainteloc Peugeot      + 3m00.5s
 6. Robert Kubica          Citroen                + 8m20.1s
 7. Alessandro Bruschetta  Subaru                 + 11m38.5s
 8. Luis Rego              Mitsubishi             + 11m50.5s
 9. Janos Puskadi          Skoda                  + 13m08.4s
10. Antonin Tlustak        Skoda                  + 13m24.8s

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