After narrowing the gap to Petter Solberg on each of Saturday’s stages so far, Sebastien Loeb finally moved ahead on SS16, securing third place by 6.4sec from the Norwegian.
Loeb’s fastest time through the 20km Himos slotted him 9.1sec behind his team-mate Sebastien Ogier and set-up a fascinating inter-team battle on the three stages which remain - despite Loeb’s efforts to downplay the fight.
“Okay, now we are third which is not bad, but Ogier is pushing very hard. Of course I’ll try to push, but I could only take half a second from him here, so maybe if I had three weeks I could catch him ...” said the world champion.
Rally leader Jari-Matti Latvala lost another handful of seconds to Sebastien Ogier on SS16 despite a bolder approach at the wheel. “The factory Citroens are coming fast so I pushed hard. I had take a few more risks in there,” he said.
In fourth place, 41sec ahead of Dani Sordo, Petter Solberg said he was pushing as hard as possible but was unable to find the extra bit of speed necessary to take the fight to the factory cars ahead of him.
Overall standings after SS16:
| Pos. | Driver | Car | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Jari-Matti LATVALA | Ford Focus WRC | 2h01m17.7s |
| 02 | Sébastien OGIER | Citroën C4 WRC | +12.3s |
| 03 | Sébastien LOEB | Citroën C4 WRC | +21.4s |
| 04 | Petter SOLBERG | Citroën C4 WRC | +27.8s |
| 05 | Dani SORDO | Citroën C4 WRC | +1m08.9s |
| 06 | Matthew WILSON | Ford Focus WRC | +4m41.1s |
| 07 | Mads ÖTSBERG | Subaru Impreza WRC | +5m20.9s |
| 08 | Juha KANKKUNEN | Ford Focus WRC | +5m44.3s |
| 09 | Juho HÄNNINEN | Skoda Fabia S2000 | +7m01.0s |
| 10 | Per Gunnar ANDERSSON | Skoda Fabia S2000 | +7m47.5s |
| 11 | Patrik SANDELL | Skoda Fabia S2000 | +8m21.1s |
| 12 | Toni GARDEMEISTER | Ford Fiesta S2000 | +8m34.8s |
| 13 | Martin PROKOP | Ford Fiesta S2000 | +10m05.6s |
| 14 | Mattias THERMAN | Ford Focus WRC | +10m30.4s |
| 15 | Ott TÄNAK | Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X | +11m32.7s |