Loeb's fortunes have been transformed from the early morning stages when he said a boat would have been preferable to a car such were the atrocious driving conditions. He attributed this to a change to snow tyres, which he has mastered a lot better than his competitors.

 “Yeah, it’s going okay,” he said. “I didn’t want to push earlier, we didn’t have the right tyre so we went carefully, but now we can push hard.”

Sordo finished the sixth stage four seconds behind Loeb, having put behind him the earlier problems with his brakes.

“On the last two everything was okay,” he said. “It feels really good to drive with the snow tyre. The feeling is nice. I’m confident with the car, the tyres, the notes - everything is perfect.”

Estonian Urmo Aava, the surprise leader after the first stage this morning, relinquished third place when his Ford Focus spun off the road and into a ditch full of water. Spectators helped him get the car back on the road but he had lost so much time that he decided he had had enough for one day and retired. 

Mikko Hirvonen moved into third but he was left cursing his bad luck in the race to catch the Citroens.

“I’m trying to take the fight to Sordo but I stalled the engine at a junction on this one and that cost me some time. I’ll keep on moving,” he said.

Australian Chris Atkinson limped home. His Citroen took a battering, incurring left-hand front corner damage, a broken front bumper, a left-hand rear puncture and signs of a heavy bang on the co-driver’s door.

“About a couple of kilometres before the finish we aquaplaned, spun and hit a pole of the outside of the corner,” he said. “We should be able to carry on but Stephane [Prevot, co-driver] has a sore shoulder, so we’ll have to see.