The two Citroën C4 WRCs keep up the chase
With 16 stages of the 2009 Rally Finland completed, Sébastien Loeb (second overall), Dani Sordo (fourth) and Sébastien Ogier (seventh) continue to chase their rivals. Three tests totalling 52.39km remain this afternoon.

The second visit to the Himos stage saw Sébastien Loeb and Daniel Elena lose a handful of seconds in their fight with Mikko Hirvonen for first place: "A deep rut in a hairpin caused one of our tyres to become unseated briefly. Some air escaped from the cover and the car was very difficult to drive after that, although we did what we could to limit the damage as much as possible until the end of the stage. There is still a long way to go, but I don’t think we will be able to bridge the gap in normal circumstances now. We will just have to keep the pressure on Hirvonen."

Dani Sordo and Marc Marti have been continuing their duel with Jari-Matti Latvala and the Spanish pair is less than two seconds behind the Finn after SS16: "Latvala was quicker than us on that loop. I didn’t drive well on the last stage. On the next loop, we will do what we can to put pressure on Jari-Matti and try to recover third place. There is long stage of nearly 30km in length to come and I think it could well shape how the rest of the rally unfolds."

Sébastien Ogier and Julien Ingrassia are seventh overall and profited from the day’s second loop to close the gap to Mads Ostberg: "Our notes were good and I felt confident, so I pushed a little harder. I feel increasingly comfortable in the Citroën C4 WRC which is handling very well. The next few stages are new and we will base our rhythm on the split times."

After making it into the top-10 this morning, Conrad Rautenbach and Daniel Barritt comforted their position on the day’s second loop: "There’s a little less to fight for because the gaps are getting bigger. The engine has been misfiring and the team will have a look at that during the next service break. There is still a long way to go, including a particularly long stage to come this evening. We’ll see how it goes."

Evgeny Novikov and Dale Moscatt went off on Leustu 2. The Citroën Junior Team is waiting to take a look at the car before deciding whether the crew will be able to rejoin the event under the SupeRally ruling on Sunday.

With 114km of competitive action already completed today, crews will cover a further loop of three stages before returning to the service area in Jyväskylä from 7.57pm this evening.

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