The second passage over the speedy and narrow Appricciani-Coggia route was the occasion to break Sebastien Loeb's string of consecutive stage wins, a feat Ford team driver François Duval succeeded in accomplishing after eleven attempts.

The Belgian recorded the fastest run across this tarmac challenge, completing his race to the finish line in 9:21.3 at the controls of his Focus RS.

The battle to take this stage win was tight indeed: Duval won it by 1.3 seconds, while Sebastien Loeb's Citroen C4 and Mikko Hirvonen's Ford Focus tied for second place. The Stobart Ford team's Jari-Matti Latvala came close as well, signing the fourth-fastest time only three tenths of a second behind Loeb and Hirvonen...

A few seconds away, Petter Solberg claimed fifth position at the wheel of his works Subaru Impreza. Andreas Mikkelsen and Henning Solberg took the following sixth and seventh positions respectively, their best results so far this week-end.

Subaru driver Chris Atkinson, safely buffered in his overall position on the leaderboard and too far away to catch up, seemed to ease off from his earlier pace to take the eighth spot on this final run of the day.

Matthew Wilson's Ford and Mads Ostberg's Subaru were the last two cars to enter the top ten.

Day Two of Rallye de France-Tour de Corse ends with Sebastien Loeb dominating the event. The Frenchman holds a 52.4-second lead on Mikko Hirvonen, 56.7 seconds on overall third-placed François Duval.

Nearing the two-minute deficit mark, Jari-Matti Latvala finishes the day in fourth position after overtaking and then increasing his lead on Petter Solberg to 22.4 seconds. In sixth place on the leaderboard, Chris Atkinson is four minutes down from the rally leader and over a minute and a half ahead of his closest pursuer, Urmo Aava.

The battle for eighth place is much closer, with Brice Tirabassi 7.3 seconds ahead of Matthew Wilson, himself separated from Mads Ostberg by only six tenths of a second.

Day Three will present two more roads to tame twice, making for a four-stage programme. The final day of Corsican racing begins Sunday morning at 08:43 local time.