A failed gamble on tyre selection saw Sebastien Loeb fall 16 seconds adrift of leader Mikko Hirvonen at the end of the second day of the Rally of Sweden.
Little separated the Citroen of reigning six-time champion Loeb from the Ford of Hirvonen for much of the second leg but a crucial call on when to change tyres saw the leader eke out a few more precious seconds heading into the final day.
The crucial call came before stage 14, when Hirvonen elected to make the switch to fresh front tyres while Loeb chose to hold off until the following stage to re-shod his C4 WRC.
Hirvonen pulled out 6.2 seconds over Loeb on stage 14, but the Frenchman did reap the same benefits from his new rubber when he changed ahead of SS15, finishing that stage over seven seconds slower than Hirvonen.
"It didn't work out," a downbeat Loeb explained.
"We had good front tyres but the rears were destroyed and the car was undriveable."
"I couldn't push, I just had to follow the road and couldn't attack."
"The rear end wouldn't follow the front of the car - even after I tried to wear the fronts deliberately."
"Having new tyres at the front and destroyed ones at the rear was worse than have four destroyed ones."
Loeb's woes initially saw the gap to Hirvonen move out to 23 seconds at the end of stage 15, but the Frenchman managed to claw some time back over the day's final stage to remain within touching distance.
Loeb's woes were nothing compared with those of team-mate Dani Sordo, who lost third place to the second factory Ford of Jari-Matti Latvala after suffering an overheating problem that forced him to stop and remove a piece of snow shielding from the engine compartment.
"I had to stop because the engine overheated - it's difficult to explain but we made a mistake with a small part in the car," Sordo explained.
The delay left Sordo trailing the leader by one minute 46 seconds heading into the third leg, while third-placed Latvala is 51 seconds down on his team-mate and just over half a minute shy of Loeb.
Sebastien Ogier headed up the chasing pack behind the top two manufacturer teams as he finished the day in fifth for the Citroen Junior Team, while Stobart Ford's Henning Solberg was sixth.
Solberg's British team-mate Matthew Wilson was seventh ahead of Mads Ostberg's Subaru, while Petter Solberg (Citroen) was ninth and PG Andersson (Skoda) 10th.
Former F1 world champion Kimi Raikkonen was down in 35th place and well out of points-scoring contention after losing nearly 30 minutes on Friday when he hit a snow bank on stage six.