Al Qassimi on the brink

A strong end to the second leg of the Rally Portugal has put Sheikh Khalid al Qassimi in contention to pick up his first World Rally Championship points of the season.

Sheikh Khalid al Qassimi in high-speed action.

A strong end to yesterday's second leg of the Rally Portugal has put Sheikh Khalid al Qassimi in strong contention to pick up his first World Rally Championship (WRC) points of the season. The Emirati driver, who had started the day 12th, remained on the pace all day in his BP Ford Abu Dhabi car as he closed in on a top-10 points scoring spot, and he was 11th after yesterday's 13th stage, but on exactly the same time as 10th placed Federico Villagra.

Al Qassimi will have the advantage for today's final five stages of running behind Villagra's Ford car, which should give him cleaner road conditions in which to push. Conditions yesterday were tough for al Qassimi, who said: "We were better than yesterday, but I had some problems with the brakes. "I enjoyed this afternoon and am positive about tomorrow's stages. We will make some small changes and start to push a bit harder,"

He will also have ambitions of catching Kimi Raikkonen's Citroen Junior car. The 2007 Formula One world champion is only 25.4 seconds ahead of the Villagra and al Qassimi tussle. It is only al Qassimi's second WRC event of the season, having concentrated his efforts in recent months on the Middle East Rally Championship. Meanwhile at the front of the field, Sebastien Ogier will be hoping it is third time lucky today in his quest for his first WRC win.

The Frenchman has twice led events this season, but has yet to finish on the top step. He suffered a puncture when leading in Turkey and had to settle for fourth place, then spun on the final stage of the Rally New Zealand earlier this month and had to be content with second place. But there was no sign of any mistakes on the Portuguese gravel yesterday as he maintained his lead at the front. Although championship leader Sebastien Loeb did make in-roads into his compatriot's advantage, he still trails by 21.1secs.

The six-times world champion is not optimistic of catching Ogier today in his Citroen, blaming being too conservative with concerns over tyre wear for why he had not been quicker. "I have to push tomorrow but the gap is big and he is going very well," he told wrc.com. "We are only second on the road tomorrow so it won't be easy to make a difference. He was running very well but at the same time saving nicely his tyres. I was too cautious for the tyres and lost too much time."

After his previous misfortunes when leading, Ogier was understandably reticent about looking too far ahead. "It was difficult but we didn't lose a lot of time being first on the road," said the 26-year-old. "I have to see for my gap to Seb because I know it will be hard again tomorrow." Petter Solberg's privateer Citroen is a distant third, more than 50 seconds adrift of Ogier, while the second Citroen of Dani Sordo is fourth.

It was another disappointing day for the BP Ford car of Mikko Hirvonen, who again was unable to match the speed of the Citroen cars, and his floundering championship dreams are set to take another dent. His teammate Jari-Matti Latvala will almost certainly lose his second place in the championship after crashing out on stage nine as he damaged his left rear wheel. * Compiled by Graham Caygill