A score of three fastest times from three – two for Sebastien Loeb and one for Dani Sordo – enabled the two Citroen World Rally Team C4 WRCs to showcase their speed this morning.

Dani Sordo and Marc Marti are still third and have closed to within less than 20 seconds of the top spot. The duo succeeded in shaving 17.5 seconds off their overnight deficit of 37s to home in on the front-runners.

"We dropped a bit of time on the first test, but went well on the other two which both exceeded 30km in length. I feel confident with my C4 WRC, but today's roads are even quicker than those we visited yesterday. We'll try not to drop any time this afternoon. In fact, it would nice if we could claw back a few more seconds," Sordo said.

Loeb and Elena profited from the SupeRally ruling to rejoin this morning and went on to collect two fastest times: "We found a good pace. There's little more we can do now than make sure we reach the finish to notch up some manufacturers' points. It's also a good way to restore confidence."

The morning's three tests are repeated this afternoon, with the first car due back in Mikolajki at 6:38pm.