Sebastien Loeb underlined his mastery of slippery asphalt with another stage win on SS11 - the longest stage of Rally de France - that pulled him another 18 seconds clear at the head of the leaderboard.
With his lead over second placed Dani Sordo up to 43 seconds, Loeb said he was relieved to have cleared the toughest stage of the rally so far. “I’m here - that’s the most important thing,” he said. “That was very tricky, very fast and narrow with aquaplaning. It was difficult. I made no mistakes but there was no big push.”
Sordo was second quickest, despite a stall on the start line, with Petter Solberg, who missed a junction, rounding off the top three.
Sebastien Ogier arrived at the stage end with damage to the front right corner of his Citroen C4 WRC but left for stage 12 without offering any explanation. Jari-Matti Latvala’s Ford also sported damage to its left rear corner - a result of sliding wide into some logs.
Citroen Junior team driver Kimi Raikkonen set the eighth fastest time. The Finn seemed destined for the SupeRally list after driving into a ditch on previous test but eventually managed to get his car back on the road. Kimi’s car was undamaged in the incident but it took 35 minutes before enough spectators were on the scene to free it.
Touring car ace Yvan Muller lost more than 13 minutes after damaging a wheel and brake caliper in the stage.