Sebastien Loeb showed just why he is a six-time world champion on day two of Rally New Zealand, but still finished day two behind new leader Sebastien Ogier.
Loeb began the day in seventh place, one minute 19.8 seconds behind overnight leader Petter Solberg, after side-swiping a bridge on stage four on the opening day.
But the 36-year-old Frenchman set the fastest times on all six of the gravel stages in the eight stages raced today to put himself right back in contention for his third Rally NZ title and fourth straight win in 2010.
He finished the day second, 5.3 seconds adrift of Citroen team-mate and compatriot Ogier, with four stages to be run on the final day.
Ogier, who topped the times on both runs round Hampton Downs, leapfrogged Solberg and Jari-Matti Latvala into top spot on today's opening stage and held on despite Loeb breathing down his neck.
Loeb's impressive drive on the Te Akau Coast super stage 12 saw him clock a massive 22 seconds faster than next best Mikko Hirvonen, in a Ford, to set himself up for a big push during the afternoon stages.
‘It has been an incredible day; flat out from the start to the end and now we've made up the gap to first place,’ Loeb said.
‘We're five seconds behind Sebastien and everything is possible again. I'm really happy. I think I couldn't do better.’
It was not a great day for Solberg, running first in his privateer Citroen. The Norwegian lost ground early to slip to third after the day's first around New Franklin and, following the second run over the same course for SS14, he was back in fifth spot 36secs behind Citroen Junior Team driver Ogier.
By the end of the day that had blown out to 53.6secs, despite a good drive around Hampton Downs in the day's last stage where he and Loeb were just 0.2secs behind Ogier.
‘I knew before the start it was going to be tough,’ said the Norwegian. ‘But there was so much [loose] gravel on the road in the morning that there really was nothing I could do.’
Ford's Latvala heads into the final day third in the overall standings, 27.9secs behind Loeb, after going fifth fastest through SS17.
Spain's Dani Sordo (fourth, +47.5s), Finland's Hirvonen (sixth, +1min 0.2s), Britain's Matthew Wilson (seventh +3min 4.9s) and Norway's Henning Solberg (eighth, 5min 41.4secs) round out the point-scoring positions.
