Loeb recovers to reclaim lead

Sebastien Loeb bounced back from a turbulent morning to retake the lead in the Rally of Turkey after Marcus Gronholm floundered under pressure.

Gronholm took advantage of problems for Loeb this morning to take the lead on stage nine but the Frenchman immediately showed he was in no mood to let victory slip away.

He won stage 10 by over four seconds from Peugeot driver Gronholm to trim the Finn’s cushion to just 2.5 seconds.

On the following stage world championship leader Loeb was a massive 16.5 seconds faster than Gronholm to claim a 14-second advantage at the top.

Loeb held a slender overnight lead from Gronholm and pulled clear this morning with a win on stage eight, leaving his advantage at over 16 seconds.

But that gap was wiped out on the following stage, with Loeb incurring a 10-second penalty for a jump start before a lacklustre drive lost him a further 13 seconds on Gronholm, who won the stage.

World champion Petter Solberg is in a distant third place as he continues to suffer from the time he lost yesterday.

A heavy landing damaged an air intake and cut his power, costing Solberg around 45 seconds which continues to keep him out of the battle for top spot. The Subaru driver is a minute adrift in third.

Ford’s Francois Duval was embroiled in a close battle with Citroen veteran Carlos Sainz for fourth spot but the pair both suffered on stage 11.

Duval lost over two minutes to slide back to sixth while Peugeot’s Harri Rovanpera leapfrogged Sainz into fourth.

In the junior class, Darlington’s Guy Wilks is down in sixth after a string of problems last night and this morning.

The Suzuki driver crashed on last night’s short super special stage and initially looked set for retirement.

He was, however, allowed to start today’s stages after being given a three-minute penalty. Any hope he had of clawing that time back disappeared when another penalty – this time for being late at a checkpoint – cost him two more minutes.