Sébastien Loeb maintains the lead with a tactically clever performance

At the ADAC Rallye Deutschland around Trier, the competitors had to cope with changeable weather and equally changing road conditions during today's second leg, but favourite Sébastien Loeb kept his cool. The Frenchman was strong as usual and was able to further increase his lead in the Citroën DS3 WRC. Thus, his opponents were forced to push hard, right from the beginning.

Estonian Ott Tänak (Ford Fiesta RS WRC) and Spaniard Dani Sordo (MINI John Cooper Works WRC) strengthened their attacks and had to give up after getting off the road at the Arena Panzerplatte, the longest stage at the Baumholder military area. At the finish of Baumholder, Sébastien Loeb showed himself convinced: “A great stage, the lead for us – a fantastic day.”

On the six special stages of the leg on Saturday, Loeb set three fastest times, Tänak two and Sordo one. Loeb’s rival Jari-Matti Latvala (Finland) with his Ford Fiesta WRC deliberately drove cautiously after an accident of team-mate Petter Solberg (Norway) and benefited with second place behind rally leader Sébastien Loeb. Mikko Hirvonen in the second Citroën DS3 WRC was also able to improve and is now in third overall position.

The best placed Germans, Sepp Wiegand (Zwönitz) and co-driver Timo Gottschalk (Rheins-berg) moved up into a highly respectable 11th place, in spite of their less powerful Skoda Fa-bia S2000. Young driver Wiegand from Erzgebirge, only 21 years old, was happy, but cau-tious at the finish of leg two in Trier: “On the final leg, I probably have to carry the Fabia care-fully into the finish.”

142,000 people in total have already come to watch the ADAC Rallye Deutschland since Thursday. Sunday's special stages Dhrontal (SS 13 / 14) and the Power Stage "Circus Max-imus" in the city centre of Trier are scheduled for tomorrow.