Finnish
Mikko Hirvonen led the Rally of Poland for Ford after
Citroen's world champion Sebastien Loeb hit trouble for
the third race in a row.
Hirvonen ended the day's six stages around the lakes
of northern Poland 8.9 seconds ahead of his compatriot
and team mate Jari-Matti Latvala.
The Ford drivers shared the stage wins with three each. "I
want 10 points from here and after Loeb's accident I must think about the championship
now," Hirvonen said.
"After I saw Loeb's
car I eased my pace because I didn't want to make the
same mistake. I had marked the tree stump that he hit
in my pace notes and actually discussed it with Jari-Matti
before we started this morning," he added. "It's
a new rally with new pace notes so that kind of accident
can happen to anyone and I can't afford to do anything
stupid tomorrow."
Frenchman Loeb, who had seemed to be cruising towards
a sixth successive title when he won the first five
rallies of the season, crashed into a hidden tree stump
early in the third stage and broke a wheel.
"I
hit a tree stump just on the side of the road which
I didn't see on the recce (pre-race reconnaissance)
because it was covered by sand," said Loeb,
who is just seven points ahead of Hirvonen in the championship
and risks being overtaken by the Finn on Sunday. "We
hit it with the right-hand front wheel and that's totally
broken. It's not so good."
Loeb's team said they were examining the damage
to see whether he could rejoin the rally on Saturday
with a considerable time penalty.
The Frenchman crashed
out of the Acropolis Rally in Greece this month and
finished only fourth in Sardinia after receiving a
two-minute penalty for breaching the safety rules.
There are four rallies remaining after Poland.
Citroën's Spanish driver Dani Sordo was in third place,
37 seconds off the pace, ahead of the Norwegian Solberg
brothers Petter and Henning for Citroen and Ford respectively.
Drivers praised the fast stages while occasional showers
failed to discourage large numbers of spectators from
crowding the most spectacular parts of the course.
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