Sebastien Loeb has vowed to keep up his relentless pace on the Rally of Japan after pressuring Marcus Gronholm into throwing away the lead today.
Ford driver Gronholm led after the first day but on today's fourth stage he blew his advantage, losing over 20 seconds with a spin.
Loeb pounced immediately and seized the lead, stretching out a 25.6secs lead after 21 stages to leave him heading into the final day vowing to maintain his pace.
The Citroen driver said: 'It's simple - we will need to be 100% everywhere. Pushing to the limit, and maybe a bit beyond that if it's necessary.
'We didn't know if Marcus had made a mistake or if he had suffered a technical problem, so we kept pushing at the same rhythm.
'It was the right decision - Marcus had spun but he was going quickly again straight away.
'A 25.6secs lead is good, but not necessarily enough with Marcus pushing so hard behind me.
'There are about 100 competitive kilometres left, and having pushed hard from the start I'm going to keep pushing hard to the end. Marcus will probably do the same thing, so the battle continues.'
Gronholm had no explanation for his error-strewn day.
'It was slippery and I made too many mistakes,' he said.
'Firstly I hooked a wheel off the road on a right hand bend in a narrow section and spun. I had to reverse and turn around.
'Then on the next stage I went off at a slow left corner and had to reverse back onto the stage. I don't understand why I made such mistakes.'
Gronholm's team-mate Mikko Hirvonen kept up his consistent form with six top three spots on the stages to lie third overall, over two minutes clear of fourth-placed Chris Atkinson.
The Subaru driver recovered from a late dip in speed yesterday to relieve OMV Peugeot driver Manfred Stohl of fourth place, dumping the Austrian down to fifth.
Citroen rookie Dani Sordo is sixth but he is under pressure from Petter Solberg, who brushed off yesterday's brake difficulties to creep up to seventh in his Subaru.
Toshi Arai is eighth in another Subaru but Englishman Matthew Wilson's push for a points finish is over after turbo problems this morning cost him 45 minutes.
The Stobart Ford driver had been ninth overall but suffered a loss of power before getting his car stuck in a ditch whilst letting Atkinson pass on stage 14.
Wilson's father and team boss Malcolm said: "Matthew had no boost pressure on the road section to the first stage.
'He pulled over on the stage to let Chris Atkinson through and got stranded there. These things happen.'
