Mikko Hirvonen maintained the Rally Italia Sardegna lead after a chaotic day that saw three of his main rivals, Sebastien Loeb, Jari-Matti Latvala and Petter Solberg retire in separate incidents.
Hirvonen is now 1 minute clear of second-placed Evgeny Novikov who moved up from fourth to second after a stellar performance by the M-Sport Ford driver this afternoon, with teammate Ott Tanak a further minute adrift in third.
Mads Ostberg’s Adapta Ford suffered from heavy tyre degradation throughout the day in addition to a differential issue which dropped the Norwegian to seventh; he’s now trailing Andreas Mikkelsen by 5.7 seconds.
Petter Solberg was running second until he took the front-left corner off his car, which pushed him back to tenth overall and destroyed his chances of a possible triumph.