Mikko Hirvonen Crashes Out of Rally Jordan

Sebastien Loeb has just received a great news in the very first running of Friday in Rally Jordan, as his main title rival Mikko Hirvonen crashed his Ford Focus RS WRC and will see no action in the remaining stages of today.

According to the official site of the WRC, Hirvonen “crashed 4.5km from the start, clipping a bank with the front right-hand corner of his Focus RS World Rally Car, then ricocheting across the road into another bank and breaking his car's left-hand front suspension.”

Under the circumstances, the Finnish driver will not be able to get any more running today, as it would take an immense – and useless, we might add – effort from his mechanics to get the car ready by the afternoon special stages. “He hopes to restart as a SuperRally entrant on Saturday,” added the report from the WRC.

Two stages into the Friday action in Jordan, Ford's Jari-Matti Latvala continues to hold an over-20 second lead from Citroen drivers Petter Solberg, Sebastien Loeb and Sebastien Ogier, while Dani Sordo sits about 43 second behind Latvala, in 5th place.

Loeb started off pretty decent on Friday, as he emerged in 2nd place after SS8, but a great run by Solberg on Kafrain 1 stage gave the Norwegian a 3.6-second advantage over the reigning world champion before the start of SS10.

Following Citroen's 4-car pack, Stobart duo Henning Solberg and Matthew Wilson are currently running in 6th and 7th place respectively, while followed by Munchi's Federico Villagra and Citroen Junior's Kimi Raikkonen (less than a minute behind). The Top 10 is completed by Armindo Araujo.