Intro:

By late Saturday, Finland's Jari-Matti Latvala held a 49.2 seconds lead over Daniel Sordo after nine of the 14 stages on the 2013 Acropolis Rally.

Script:

A bad start to day two of the Acropolis Rally for Evgeny Novikov ...

The overnight leader picked up a puncture on stage four - Saturday's second - leaving Jari-Matti Latvala in a position of real strength.

The Finn won four or the opening five stages - the only blemish coming on SS6 (special stage 6), won by Spaniard Daniel Sordo of Citroen.

Novikov then reeled off two successive stage wins - but after his earlier problems, the Russian languished in ninth place after SS9.

At this point, Latvala led Sordo by 49.2 seconds with Belgian Thierry Neuville third, 99 seconds adrift of Latvala's Volkswagen.

Away from the blue riband class, in only his second appearance in the WRC-2 category, former Formula 1 driver Robert Kubica - he of the terrible rally crash in February 2011 - won the first nine sages in his classification.