Sébastien Ogier extended his lead over Teemu Suninen at the head of Rally México on SS5 while Ott Tänak returned to the pace after his disastrous previous stage.
Ogier inherited the lead from Tänak heading into Las Minas as the world champion surrendered 45 seconds on Ortega.
But roadside repairs before SS5 paid dividends as Tänak gnawed 2.1 seconds from Ogier to set the second fastest time on the stage.
“We had a rear corner broken so we managed to pull it together a bit,” he confirmed. “But we are still in a big s**t.”
Ogier was third fastest on the test behind another recovering Hyundai – that of Dani Sordo – but crucially 2.5s faster than Suninen, who now trails Ogier by 7.8s in second in the lead battle.
“We had to avoid big rocks on the line everywhere, they’ve put some nice big rocks in the line the guys in front,” Ogier rued.
Suninen meanwhile refused to get drawn in by his current position.
“It’s been OK but it doesn’t matter,” he said. “We still have a long rally to go.”
Thierry Neuville remains in third place, 12.4s adrift of Ogier’s Toyota which is impressive given he’s running second on the road.
But not impressive enough for Neuville seemingly, who pulled up at the stop control, gazed towards the times on the board, and looked bemused.
“I pushed like hell to be honest and I see Elfyn [Evans] with the same time. I don’t understand,” he responded. “I had a very good stage.”
Evans had managed to beat Neuville for the first time this weekend, nicking back 0.3s from the Hyundai driver. But he is still behind fourth-placed Esapekka Lappi, who is the meat in Neuville and Evans’ sandwich. The Finn is 3.5s behind Neuville and 4.5s ahead of Evans.
“Maybe I could improve one corner so it was really clean and a good stage,” Lappi said.
Kalle Rovanperä lost another 5.8s to Ogier on Las Minas to maintain his grip on sixth place as his cautious approach continues.
“The conditions overall are very tricky,” he said. “It was sad that on the first stage we had a slow puncture as I didn’t hit anything so after that I was a bit more cautious.”
Gus Greensmith has been demoted to eighth place by Tänak who is now seventh, just 1.5s behind Rovanperä. Greensmith felt his run on Las Minas was “pretty good” but he was the slowest WRC car on the stage by 2.7s.
Sordo set the fastest time on the stage but was frustrated to find this out after his radiator problems on Friday’s first stage, claiming: “But now it’s spoilers!
“Honestly, I don’t know if I feel frustrated, [or if] I feel sad, I have no feeling,” he continued. “It’s like this. We can do nothing, so just drive.”
Leading positions after SS5
1 Ogier (Toyota)
2 Suninen (M-Sport Ford) +7.8s
3 Neuville (Hyundai) +12.4s
4 Lappi (M-Sport Ford) +15.9s
5 Evans (Toyota) +20.4s
6 Rovanperä (Toyota) +31.4s
7 Tänak (Hyundai) +32.9s
8 Greensmith (M-Sport Ford) +41.8s
9 Tidemand (Škoda) +2m32.7s
10 Gryazin (Hyundai) +2m55.6s
