One stage to go for Loeb

Only a single stage remains between Sebastian Loeb and Daniel Elena being able to celebrate their fifth Monte Carlo win.

It seems that tomorrow's 5km Power Stage will only serve to let Loeb and home-hero Elena celebrate in front of their fans, granted at about 60mph. Loeb, as ever however, will most likely not back off, going for the extra 3 points the Power Stage win brings.

The fight for second, third and fourth behind him, however, is hotting up. Dani Sordo, Petter Solberg and Mikko Hirvonen all occupy the places, respectively. But, with Solberg and Hirvonen's increased confidence in their respective new cars, it seems that we may be on for an interesting stage. It may only be 5kms, but being Monte Carlo, a lot can happen in one stage.

In the four stages run today, Hirvonen won one more to add to his tally but Solberg an impressive 3 scratch times. The flying Solberg reduced the deficit to the Spaniard from 1 min 6 secs at the start of the day, right down to 18secs at the end of the day. The highlight being taking nearly 15secs out of Sordo on the very first stage of the rally.

Behind this possible fight tomorrow, Evgeny Novikov is well set for a fantastic fifth on his Monte début. Francois Delecour is sixth on his return to the WRC, the only problems in his otherwise great rally was tearing off his front bumper on Friday and suffering power-steering failure earlier today.

Pierre Campana is seventh in his works MINI, but there are many rally fans wondering what Kris Meeke, the man Campana replaced for this rally, could have done in equal machinery. Ott Tanak is under team-orders to finish the rally, though he isn't content with having to “just drive”. Ninth Martin Prokop, being chased hard by Armindo Araujo in tenth, only 2.9 secs separates the pair.

Aside from Solberg's maverick charge after Sordo, the only other news was that PG Andersson's bright rally came to a fiery end on SS12. Absolutely flying in the Satria Neo S2000, keeping a good few WRC cars behind him and leading his class, S-WRC, by over 7 mins, Proton's fairytale return to the WRC didn't finish. Worse too, Giandomenico Basso crashed the other Proton out of the rally on the very first stage of the rally, back on Wednesday. Craig Breen currently leads the class, but is under absolutely zero pressure as he is the only car in the class!