Loeb cruising towards Bulgaria win
Sebastien Loeb is driving conservatively through the final morning of Rally Bulgaria and maintaining his half-minute advantage over his Citroen team-mate Dani Sordo
The latter now looks more likely to get second place, having inched away from the chasing Petter Solberg on SS12.
Solberg had taken a fourth straight stage victory on this morning's opening test, getting the gap to Sordo down to 3.8 seconds.
But on the following Slavovitsa stage, Solberg found his Citroen too nervous on the sections where more gravel was present and lost ground. With Sordo winning the stage, they are now 6.5s apart heading for the final two stages after the mid-morning service.
There have been no changes to the leading positions, as Sebastien Ogier (Citroen Junior) continues to complete an all-Citroen top four ahead of the two Fords. Mikko Hirvonen is now a minute clear of Jari-Matti Latvala's experimental choice of soft tyres for this loop proved unsuccessful.
Kimi Raikkonen may yet salvage the final point. The Citroen Junior driver is 1m30.7s behind 10th-placed Henning Solberg in the S2000 Ford with two stages to go, and took 1m17s out of him on the same loop this morning.
Pos Driver Car Time/Gap 1. Sebastien Loeb Citroen 2h37m50.2s 2. Dani Sordo Citroen + 33.4s 3. Petter Solberg Citroen + 39.9s 4. Sebastien Ogier Citroen + 2m02.5s 5. Mikko Hirvonen Ford + 3m06.1s 6. Jari-Matti Latvala Ford + 4m09.4s 7. P-G Andersson Ford + 4m56.8s 8. Frigyes Turan Peugeot + 6m18.6s 9. Matthew Wilson Ford + 8m40.3s 10. Henning Solberg Ford + 11m41.6s
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