Sebastien Loeb won this stage, taking the win after crossing the 22-kilometre run in 13:50.0. The factory Citroen driver was only 1.2sec ahead of his rival, works Ford driver Mikko Hirvonen.

Interestingly, despite the closeness of the results, while Loeb decided to go flat out without preserving his tyres too much, Hirvonen opted to save them for the afternoon's next two stages; in both cases, signs of tread wear were already quite visible on both the C4 WRC and the Focus RS.

"1.2 seconds is not a lot," Loeb considered. "Mikko has done a really good stage. There was nothing more I could do, I was flat out."

"I was driving cautiously to keep my tyres because yesterday we had a few problems. Hopefully they'll last today," stated Hirvonen, who expected that everyone would be "trying to save" their tyres.

Dani Sordo crossed the line a few seconds later behind aboard his official Citroen car. "It's certainly tough on the tyres, so we took it a little safely," the Spaniard confirmed. "We'll wait to see how they look after the next stage, that will tell us how hard we can push on the final one."

Petter Solberg came next in fourth position at the controls of his privateer Citroen Xsara, satisfied but wishing for more. "The time is not so bad, but we could have done with some more power in there," he declared. "This stage is all about acceleration, acceleration and acceleration!"

17.6 seconds off the stage-winning result and fifth-fastest, Evgeny Novikov continued to promisingly handle his Citroen Junior Team car. Past the 20-second mark, the Stobart Ford pairing of Henning Solberg and Matthew Wilson claimed positions six and seven.

Past the half-minute mark, the CJT's Conrad Rautenbach, Ford's Khalid Al Qassimi and Munchi's Ford's Federico Villagra completed the top ten for this stage.

The leaderboard shows that Sebastien Loeb's advantage on Mikko Hirvonen now stands at 8.1 seconds; with two stages to go, he is still aiming for a 20-second lead before the day ends. Dani Sordo stands 44.8 seconds away in third position, while Petter Solberg and Matthew Wilson are each nearing the minute's delay mark on the driver ahead.

The second run through the Almodovar stage – the longest of the rally - comes next.