The Citroen driver won all six proper stages today to take an iron grip on the event, pounding Subaru rival Solberg into submission with his mastery of the Welsh forests.

Solberg trails by 44.5 after 12 stages and the former world champion admits his chances of victory rest on Loeb, who has already won eight rallies this season, suffering a rare problem.

“We had no problems but it is very difficult,” he said. “Loeb is taking time from us on every stage. I just can’t keep up.

“The stages this morning were very quick and we are simply struggling to keep up. We have to work harder to find a solution to get quicker.

“I’m trying hard and I can’t push any harder – that’s just how it is. On the fast straight stages I don’t have a chance but I can make up ground on the twisty stuff. I am trying very, very hard, believe me.”

Loeb is revelling in his obvious superiority in south Wales, even if his championship celebrations are likely to be put on hold for one more round at least.

Loeb needs eight points more than Marcus Gronholm and two more than Solberg this weekend to seal the title, a result which is looking increasingly unlikely.

The former gymnast is concentrating on completing his victory though, saying: “We are faster than Petter and are increasing our lead so we will continue to push forward. I have a good feeling with the car and obviously the time is there.”

Loeb may have won all the full stages today – prior to a short run around the Millennium Stadium tonight – but Peugeot driver Gronholm’s progress received more attention.

He lost over a minute yesterday with brake problems and slipped to 19th but mounted a comeback which this afternoon saw him regain a podium position with third.

Gronholm’s former rival Colin McRae can only dream of that kind of progress and the Scotsman’s day has been a tricky one.

McRae is making his world championship return after a two-year absence but even the presence of a former world champion cannot disguise Skoda’s difficulties.

Last night he criticised an “unacceptable” start-line problem and today his cause was hampered by gearbox difficulties, leaving him to battle protégé Kris Meeke.

“I lost the gearshift at the beginning of stage seven so I was having to change manually,” said the 1995 champion, who lies 10th.

“To use the manual box I’ve had to loosen my seat belts to get a better grip on the gear stick. But even that is not easy because the hand brake gets in the way.

“This is not the best situation when you have a job to do but it was not slowing us down and it fixed itself on a road section.”

Meeke has performed steadily all rally to hang on to the top 10, taking advantage of problems for the likes of Chris Atkinson and Henning Solberg. He briefly nipped ahead of McRae before his mentor relegated him to 12th, with Manxman Mark Higgins’ Ford between them.

Ahead of the sparring Britons, Mitsubishi’s Harri Rovanpera suffered an afternoon to forget, sliding from third to fifth on stage 12 as Gronholm and Citroen’s Francois Duval jumped ahead.

The second Peugeot of Markko Martin is sixth and Gianluigi Galli’s Mitsubishi seventh. Manfred Stohl is the leading privateer runner in his Citroen, holding the final points-paying position in eighth.