Breen holds narrow lead

Entering today’s final six stages of Rally Finland, Waterford’s Craig Breen and his Killarney co-driver Paul Nagle lead the way in the S-WRC category.

Their Kel-Tech-backed Ford Fiesta S2000 is 3.7 seconds ahead of the Swedish driver PG Andersson (Proton Satria). Initially, both drivers were battling for third place until series leader Hayden Paddon (Skoda) dropped out with engine trouble. Breen moved into second after SS 6. Category leader Esapekka Lappi was steadily increasing his lead until his Fiesta developed power steering trouble that led to an incident when he hit a rock and lost over four minutes. Breen took over at the top of the S-WRC contenders and is 12th in general classification.

Meanwhile, Sebastien Loeb (Citroen) holds a five-second lead over team-mate Mikko Hirvonen.