The road-opening position did not suit Petter Solberg too much on Saturday, as the Norwegian driver was unable to keep the pace with Loeb throughout the entire 9 stages on schedule. After only 2 of them, the Frenchman had already taken the lead – making up for the 27 seconds of disadvantage after Day 1 – and began stretching it stage by stage.
Starting each stage 3rd overall, Loeb built an almost insurmountable lead up front, as the Citroen driver believes 55 seconds will be more than enough to keep his rivals behind for the 4 more stages scheduled on Sunday.
“It was a perfect day. No mistakes, I was on the limit all the time, trying to increase my lead. Now we have more than 50 seconds it should be perfect, but we have to stay on the road and avoid any mistakes. That's the plan,” said Loeb.
Solberg will start the 3rd day of action in Mexico from 2nd place, but he is placed only 3 seconds ahead of Citroen Junior’s Sebastien Ogier. The Frenchman actually controlled the battle for 2nd place until the final stages of Day 2, put pulled a tactical move in the end and dropped to 3rd overall, in order to have a better starting position on Sunday.
“We slowed down at the end just to be third tomorrow because it will be an advantage to be behind Petter on the road. We want to try and finish second. That's the plan. It’s been a good day. We had one spin and one stall but that's okay. Sebastien has been extremely fast, but it was never my plan to fight with him - it’s always been to fight with Petter,” said Ogier.
Fourth and fifth overall on Saturday were the two Ford drivers Jari-Matti Latvala and Mikko Hirvonen. Although the two managed to score some better times than on Friday, their pace was constantly behind the leaders’, meaning they’ll probably have to settle for the same positions on Sunday also (as they are more than 45 seconds behind the podium runners).
Hirvonen will likely finish the rally in 4th place however – if nothing major will happen tomorrow – as Latvala admitted he would slow down on purpose to let his compatriot finish ahead.
“Let's see what happens tomorrow, but yeah, of course in a normal situation Mikko should finish ahead of me because he needs the points in the drivers' championship,” said Latvala.
With Dani Sordo and Matthew Wilson out of contention after SS10 – the Spaniard hit something on the road and damaged his car in the process, losing more than 40 minutes through Day 2, while the Brit made a road exit a couple of km before the finish line and stopped his car into a ditch – Henning Solberg ended the second day in a comfortable 6th place, ahead of Federico Villagra (almost 7 minutes behind), Martin Prokop, Xavier Pons and Armindo Araujo.
Monster Ford’s Ken Block also dropped to 21st overall – after being 10th at the end of Day 1 – after his car’s suspension broke almost 24 km from the start of SS10.
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