Sébastien Ogier heads into the final day of Rally Italy Sardinia in the lead of the rally, but Ott Tänak is just 11.1 seconds behind.
In what had been a three-way battle for first before Adrien Fourmaux punctured on the day’s second stage, Ogier has led the way throughout – despite initially dropping behind Tänak overall before being given a notional time for the seconds lost in Fourmaux’s dust.
But just like in Portugal, the two world champions have been incredibly well matched – trading blows stage by stage.
Tänak was hurt by a slow puncture towards the end of SS8, but over the course of Sunday’s leg Ogier gained a net 3.8s over Tänak.
“Easy,” Ogier smiled. “All under control…
“It’s been a long day, afternoon was rough,” he added. “I’m happy so far, good race management.”
Tänak added: “For me it’s difficult in the car – especially on a narrow road you really need a good balance to drive through. There’s still Sunday to go, so of course it’s not over.”
Kalle Rovanperä is a comfortable third overall, having found an improved feeling aboard his Toyota compared to Friday. Coupled to a better road position, that allowed the Finn to ease past his team-mate Sami Pajari.
“Happy with the day,” Rovanperä. “We did a clean day and that was the plan.”
Pajari however ended the day fifth, 23.0s behind world championship leader Elfyn Evans, as he was forced to stop and change a tire on SS11.
Evans ironically had to do the exact same thing, but he lost less time than Pajari and therefore moved into fourth position – provisionally banking him what could be a vital extra couple of points.
Takamoto Katsuta had lost his sixth position to a gaggle of Rally2 cars after his own puncture on Saturday afternoon’s opener, but recovered back to seventh by the end of the loop – just 11.8s behind Nikolay Gryazin’s Rally2 car.
Fourmaux would’ve been sixth, had he not rolled his Hyundai early on the penultimate stage of the day.
Emil Lindholm continues to lead WRC2 in his Škoda, enjoying a healthy margin greater than a minute.
But the Finn did suffer a scare on the day’s penultimate stage, when he and co-driver Reeta Hämäläinen had to switch intercom cables mid-stage.
“It started cutting out and then she disappeared completely,” Lindholm explained. “She has a strong voice but with all the gravel under the car…
“We swapped intercom mid-stage, but still there was some distortion.”
Championship leader Yohan Rossel had been second but retired in the morning following a 5G impact into a tree which broke a steering arm.
Lauri Joona (Škoda) and Kajetan Kajetaowicz (Toyota) are second and third overnight.
