Spaniard loses lead - and then inherits it again!
Citroen number two Daniel Sordo still leads the Jordan Rally following the morning loop on Saturday.
Sordo initially lost out in the opening test, the 14.13 kilometre-run through Turkl 1, when his team-mate, Sebastien Loeb set the pace, 5.1 seconds up on Jari-Matti Latala.
Seb was again quickest in SS10, to increase his cushion from 8.1 seconds to 16.3 seconds.
The Frenchman continued in the same vein in SS11 too, taking his advantage to just over 30 seconds. However disaster struck for the four-time world champion after Shuna 1, when he was sidelined following a head-on collision with Conrad Rautenbach's similar C4 WRC car on a two-way access road leading to and from the test.
Nobody was injured but both cars retired and that put Dani back into the lead.
Although it was nip and tuck in SS12, Dani just edged out Latvala - by 0.3 seconds - and thus ended the loop fractionally ahead, with a 0.7 second lead heading into the 30-minute service at the Dead Sea.
Latvala meanwhile who had started the day third, 8.5 seconds off Sordo, set three second fastest times to close the deficit.
"I'm close to Dani and I need to control that now and control how he's driving," said Latvala. "It would be perfect if I can keep the gap to just a couple of seconds because I don't want to be first car on the slippery gravel roads tomorrow, so maybe I don't need to push so much.
"I made quite a few mistakes this morning and couldn't find my confidence. I slid wide too often and also ended in a field after a crest on stage 11 because my pace note was wrong. Luckily I didn't damage the car."
Mikko Hirvonen completes the top three and he is very much in contention only 5.3 seconds further back in the sister BP Ford Abu Dhabi WRT entry.
"I've made no mistakes but when I try to push hard it's difficult to gain time and I couldn't have done more than I did," conceded the 27-year-old. "I couldn't believe it when I saw Loeb's accident. It was on a very narrow section of road just after a crest.
"I'm still thinking about my road position for tomorrow. Third in the start order would be ideal so long as I'm close to Sordo and Jari-Matti."
Further down the order, Chris Atkinson is now fourth, albeit nearly two minutes further back in his Impreza and with next to no chance of a podium unless another one of the front runners has problems.
Urmo Aava completes the top five in his privately entered Citroen C4 WRC car, 46 seconds off Atkinson and over a minute up on Matthew Wilson.
Wilson had a solid morning and he still leads the way for the Stobart Ford outfit: "I have found a good level of grip with the tyres now and I'm starting to learn what they can do," said the Englishman. "I'm just trying to stay neat and tidy in the stages as it is so easy to over-push on this surface and lose time.
"We had a problem with the intercom at the start of stage 11 and the volume control wasn't working for most of the stage but again today my times have been consistent and I'm not having to push very hard for them."
Of the rest, Loeb is currently classified in seventh under the SupeRally, although it has yet to be confirmed if he will be able to re-start on Sunday. Even if he does he will drop a lot further down the order and will pick up another 20 minutes worth of penalties for missing this afternoon's repeat loop.
Henning Solberg completes the provisional points' scorers in eighth, with Federico Villagra and Khalid Al-Qassimi ninth and tenth, although all three are effectively running in 7th, 8th and 9th.
"We had some good stages this morning and will make a few small changes now in service," noted Henning. "Yesterday the second pass went well for me so hopefully we can improve on our times this afternoon. The feeling on the difficult surface is coming now but still we need to concentrate and not make any mistakes or do anything silly."
Gigi Galli is currently outside the top ten in eleventh, having rejoined the fold this morning under the SupeRally. Petter Solberg and Per-Gunnar Andersson also re-started, as did Conrad Rautenbach, although the Zimbabwean has retired again after his accident with Loeb.
In the Junior WRC category, Patrik Sandell continues to lead, as he has done since SS2. The Renault Clio man is nearly two minutes up on Jaan Molder, while Sebastien Ogier has hauled himself back up to third.
The action now continues at 13.06 hours local time, with SS13 - Turkl 2. All four of this morning's tests will be repeated - just like on Friday - to conclude the second day's action.
More to follow later...
