Sébastien Ogier has become the most successful driver in the history of Rally Italy Sardinia, after conquering an intense battle with Ott Tänak by just 7.9 seconds.
Kalle Rovanperä completed the podium and won both Super Sunday and the powerstage with a mega final stage effort.
Elfyn Evans placed fourth to maintain his championship lead, but it’s Ogier who is now his closest challenger, 19 points behind.
Reigning world champion Thierry Neuville has meanwhile fallen 50 points adrift, only managing to score five points in Sardinia.
Repeating their battle from three weeks earlier in Portugal, Ogier and Tänak locked horns and could barely be separated throughout the event.
A damaged tire on Saturday morning hurt Tänak, but Ogier looked to just about have the measure of him – escaping out of the Estonian’s clutches through Sunday’s final leg.
Ogier’s victory makes him this season’s most successful driver with three wins, and protects Toyota’s 100% start to the season.
But there was a heart-stopping moment on the powerstage when the French ace suffered a half-spin and dropped 9.3s to Tänak, slashing his advantage from 17.2s to 7.9s.
“Not an ideal finish, but it was enough to win!” Ogier smiled.
Rovanperä found himself in no man’s land for much of the weekend – not close enough to Ogier and Tänak, but far, far ahead of those behind.
Evans finished four minutes behind his team-mate, unaided by a puncture, but his points for fourth were useful for his championship challenge. Of those doing a full season Rovanperä is his closest rival, and is 20 points adrift.
Takamoto Katsuta had an action-packed weekend, stopping to change a tire of his own and also rolling his Toyota at a slow hairpin.
Sami Pajari was set to beat before a puncture change that took longer than his team-mate, and was set to beat Katsuta too before sliding slightly wide and damaging the rear-left of his car on Sunday morning, forcing him to limp through three of the day’s four stages before service.
He eventually finished seventh.
Several Rally1 drivers failed to make the top 10 in Sardinia; Neuville the highest-profile casualty after he got off line over a crest and ripped off a wheel while leading on Friday.
Hyundai team-mate Adrien Fourmaux had an even more fraught weekend – puncturing on Saturday morning which dropped him out of the lead fight, before overshooting a corner badly on the next stage and then tipping his Hyundai onto its roof in the afternoon.
M-Sport Ford suffered a dismal weekend as all three of its works Puma Rally1s retired on SS2.
Grégoire Munster broke his suspension against a bridge and retired on the road section, Josh McErlean ripped the entire rear-left corner off his Ford on the stage and Mãrtiņš Sesks got it wrong over a jump and crashed in fifth gear.
While McErlean and Munster were able to restart on Saturday and Sunday, Sesks’ event ended after just one completed stage.
WRC2 was also a dramatic affair in Sardinia, as first championship leader Yohan Rossel retired from second on Saturday after breaking a steering arm against a tree, and then rally leader Emil Lindhilm outbraked himself after a jump and got stuck in the bushes on Sunday morning.
That promoted Lauri Joona into the lead and just two stages away from a very first WRC2 win, but cruelly a rear-left puncture on the penultimate stage demoted him to sixth.
Instead it was 24-year-old Italian Roberto Daprà who scored not just his maiden WRC2 win, but first podium too, by 5.8s over Kajetan Kajetanowicz. Martin Prokop was third.
