MEXICO CITY // Sebastien Ogier extended his slender lead in the Rally of Mexico after his French compatriot and Citroen teammate Sebastien Loeb suffered gearbox problems.
Ogier started the second day leading by 2.3 seconds and finished it 10.5 ahead despite falling behind Loeb, the seven-times world champion. The final three stages will be held today.
As the first car on the gravel course in the Sierra de Lobos mountains near Leon, Ogier had to confront the worst of the conditions while sweeping the rocks off the road for his chasing rivals.
Loeb took full advantage, winning yesterday's opening stage to take the overall lead, and opening up a 19.7 seconds gap midway through the day.
However, he lost his advantage when his car got stuck in third gear and he was forced to carry out running repairs. He arrived five minutes late for the start of the next stage and was handed a 50-second penalty, dropping him back behind Ogier into second spot.
"Of course the gap was better before and I would have preferred to have this starting the final day than to be behind," said Loeb, who also won the last two super stages of the day held back in the city.
"I will have to really push because there will not be so much cleaning tomorrow as the stages have been used already in some way. It won't be easy."
Ogier, chasing his third career win, had his own problems late in the day when he suffered a power loss and was then called up before the stewards, who reopened an investigation into whether he should be punished for an incident on Friday when he drove into service rather than regroup as required by the regulations.
"It was a good day although almost everybody had problems," he said.
"We are first and that is good but Seb is very close and when it is like this it is very complicated."
Finland's Mikko Hirvonen, the BP Ford Abu Dhabi, who won last month's season-opening Rally of Sweden, was third, one and a half minutes behind Ogier despite puncturing a front tyre on the 16th stage, while his teammate, Jari-Matti Latvala, ended the day fourth.
Norway's Petter Solberg won four of Saturday's nine stages to climb from 13th overnight to fifth but nearly seven minutes behind the leader after engine problems stalled his progress on day one.
