Sébastien Loeb has maintained his position at the top of the leaderboard of Rally Ireland and the Frenchman looks on course to win the event and take the World Championship lead going into the final round in Wales in two weeks time.

Citroën team-mate Daniel Sordo continues to hold second with Jari-Matti Latvala third in a Ford Focus.

Today’s route across the border in Northern Ireland proved as challenging as yesterday’s in the south and, with rain falling for most of the day, inch perfect driving was required over the wet and muddy roads.

Loeb started the day with a 17.5 second advantage but a string of three fastest times in the first loop of stages saw the Frenchman extend his lead, aided by the fact that Sordo overshot a junction and lost more than 30 seconds in stage 12.

Over the same stages this afternoon, he continued to dominate and was only beaten by Subaru’s Chris Atkinson, who set fastest times in SS14 and SS16. Overnight, Loeb leads by 59.3 seconds with just four stages remaining on Sunday.

Jari-Matti Latvala has also maintained his third position but dropped time in stage 14 when he aquaplaned over standing water and went straight on into a field.  He is now 28.8 seconds ahead of Mikko Hirvonen, who only needs to claim three points for Ford to ensure the team wins the FIA World Rally Championship for Manufacturers for the second consecutive year.

Manfred Stohl (Citroën Xsara) has had a torrid day, culminating in retirement after going off the road in stage 13.

Rally Ireland - Results after Leg 2
 
1 Sébastien Loeb/Daniel Elena Citroën C4 WRC            2 hr 30 min 35.2sec
2 Daniel Sordo/Marc Marti Citroën C4 WRC                   2 hr 31 min 34.5sec
3 Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Anttila Ford Focus RS WRC   2 hr 32 min 44.0sec
4 Mikko Hirvonen/Jarmo Lehtinen Ford Focus RS WRC   2 hr 33 min 12.8sec
5 Petter Solberg/Phil Mills Subaru Impreza WRC           2 hr 33 min 28.4sec
6 Guy Wilks/Phil Pugh Subaru Impreza                        2 hr 36 min 27.2sec
7 Matthew Wilson/Michael Orr Ford Focus RS WRC         2 hr 39 min 58.5sec
8 Gareth MacHale/Alan Harryman Ford Focus WRC        2 hr 40 min 42.9sec