ES9 – Loeb one tenth behind Latvala!

After the first Special Stage of the second day of the Mexico Rally, Sébastien Loeb has nearly made up the deficit he accumulated the day before on Jari-Matti Latvala.

The Citroen C4 driver clocked the best time in SS9, 3.7 seconds ahead of Mikko Hirvonen (BP Ford) and 6.7 seconds ahead of Chris Atkinson (Subaru).

Dani Sordo (Citroen), who resumed the race in SuperRally today, achieved the 4th fastest time ahead of the second Subaru Impreza of Petter Solberg.

Jaru-Matti Latvala (BP Ford), who had nearly a 10-second lead over Loeb at the front of the rally yesterday, opened the road this morning, losing a lot of time to his competitors. He only finishes 6th and now holds just a small tenth of a second lead over the Alsatian with a 9.5-second deficit in ES9.

“It’s still very tight, but I feel much better,” says Loeb. “We adjusted the settings and I got closer to Latvala. I don’t know what influences more between our settings and Latvala’s position. But the important thing is to be faster.”

Mikko Hirvonen set the third-fastest time to get closer to Solberg’s fourth position, at 3.4 seconds: « It’s good, not bad », says Hirvonen. « The racing line is much cleaner than yesterday, but everyone is pushing hard. It will be difficult to move up. »