Sebastien Loeb takes tiny lead into day two of Rally Argentina

Although Loeb had rapidly surged back from fourth to first on the afternoon loop, he was a second slower than his Finnish stablemate on the Cosquin/Villa Allende stage that closed leg one, bringing the gap between them down to just a tenth. Loeb admitted at the end of the stage that he had lost confidence in the final miles.

The Citroen duo are now comfortably clear of Ford's Dani Sordo, who lost 20s to them on SS6 - both because his choice of hard tyres proved less competitive than the Citroens' softs, and because he was ill at ease tackling the stage in the dark. Delays caused by the fuel tanker issue in the morning meant SS6 ran an hour later than originally scheduled.

Adapta Ford's Mads Ostberg is still 45s behind Sordo in fourth, and several minutes ahead of the rest of the depleted field.

Leading positions after SS6:

Pos  Driver             Team/Car          Time/Gap
 1.  Sebastien Loeb     Citroen         2h20m30.6s
 2.  Mikko Hirvonen     Citroen             + 0.1s
 3.  Dani Sordo         Ford               + 33.1s
 4.  Mads Ostberg       Adapta Ford      + 1m18.4s
 5.  Nasser Al-Attiyah  Qatar Citroen    + 5m16.9s
 6.  Martin Prokop      Czech Ford       + 6m24.2s
 7.  Andreas Mikkelsen  VW Skoda         + 6m36.0s
 8.  Sebastien Ogier    VW Skoda         + 6m58.8s
 9.  Armindo Araujo     Portugal Mini    + 8m14.5s
10.  Thierry Neuville   Citroen Junior  + 10m13.2s