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Leading by almost a minute and a half before the last special stages in Rally Italia Sardinia, Mikko Hirvonen is close from his maiden win with Citroën.

On Friday, the Finn ended up alone with the lead, after Loeb and Neuville's Citroën, but also Latvala and Solberg's Ford, went off and were forced to retire. Only the Ford drivers were able to get back in the competition thanks to rally 2 regulation on Saturday.

Hirvonen ended day two with a lead of 1.28 minutes over Russian Evgeny Novikov and Estonian Ott Tanak (Ford), who is on his way to his first WRC podium finish. Mads Ostberg was fourth aboard his Ford Fiesta. The Norwegian bounced back from steering problems on Friday with four special stages wins later on.

Sébastien Ogier, who set a shock special stage win on Friday aboard his Skoda Fabia S2000 ahead of the WRC cars, was fifth overall.

There are two special stages left - about 16 kilometres - for Hirvonen to take his first season win, which will be also his first victory under Citroën's colours.

Classification after Saturday  :
1. Hirvonen-Lehtinen (Citroen DS3 Wrc) in 3.10'51”7

2. Novikov-Minor (Ford Fiesta RS Wrc) + 1'28"2

3. Tanak-Sikk (Ford Fiesta RS Wrc) + 2'20”6
4. Ostberg-Andersson (Ford Fiesta RS Wrc) + 3'48”3

5. Ogier-Ingrassia (Skoda Fabia S2000) + 4'30”5
6. Atkinson-Prevot (Mini Cooper Wrc) + 4'34”4

7. Mikkelsen-Floene (Skoda Fabia S2000) + 6'06"2
8. Prokop-Hruza (Ford Fiesta RS Wrc) + 9'18”9

9. Solberg-Patterson (Ford Fiesta Wrc) + 10'15"0

10. Kruuda-Jarveoja (Ford Fiesta S2000) + 10'56"6
Etc.