Ogier powers into Rally Italia lead

Jari-Matti Latvala went into today with a lead in excess 22 seconds but now, he faces a deficit of well over two minutes. He'll need catastrophic issues to plague those in front of him if he has any hope of winning this rally.

His teammate Sebastian Ogier has taken control and holds a comfortable one minute and 40 second advantage over Mads Ostberg in the Citroen. With Ogier clawing away at his lead in the morning stages, Latvala could feel the pressure and pushed as hard as possible. His aggression led to an error (hit a rock) that not only obliterated his lead, but also put him in a huge hole.

While Latvala and his co-driver scrambled to change the damaged wheel, he conceded second place to Ostberg. Robert Kubica was running strong in fifth when suddenly, he ripped the left front wheel off of his Ford Fiesta.

Andreas Mikkelsen and Elfyn Evans rounded out the top five as we head into the final day of competition.

1. Sebastien Ogier - 3hrs 30min 15.8s

2. Mads Ostberg - +1min 40.2s

3. Jari-Matti Latvala - +2min 01.5s

4. Andreas Mikkelsen - +2min 37.8s

5. Elfyn Evans - +4min 24.3s

6. Martin Prokop - +5min 26.1s

7. Henning Solberg - +6min 09.6s

8. Khalid Al Qassimi - +15min 05.2s

9. Lorenzo Bertelli - +16min 08.1s

10. Bernardo Sousa - +17min 32.4s