Breen in battle royal with Paddon in France

Trading times with his rivals through the various stages of Rallye de France Alsace, Waterford’s Craig Breen (Ford Fiesta) is just 2.2 seconds behind leader Hayden Paddon (Skoda Fabia) in the S2000 category of the World Rally Championship with series leader, PG Andersson (Proton Satria) over a minute adrift in third.

At the midday halt, Breen and his Killarney co-driver, Paul Nagle, had a slender lead after Paddon spun at high-speed on S.S. 4. Breen continued to lead until S.S. 6 and then punctured towards the end of the penultimate test, luckily, he lost no time. Paddon regained the lead as both drivers close on series leader Andersson.

Breen remarked: “I had to be very tidy on the last stage because we had no spare tyre after the puncture.”

Meanwhile, Sebastien Loeb (Citroen DS3) will begins today’s second leg with a 13.1 second lead over the Ford Fiesta of Jari Matti Latvala and can clinch the championship for a ninth time should he beat his Citroen team-mate Mikko Hirvonen, who lies third.

Hirvonen is only a fraction of second ahead of Fiesta of Norway’s Petter Solberg and Ireland’s Chris Patterson.