Ott Tänak stormed into the lead of Acropolis Rally Greece, while fellow world champion Kalle Rovanperä fell backwards with a puncture.
Like they have in Portugal and Sardinia, Tänak has been locked in a battle with Sébastien Ogier at the head of the field.
After five stages, Ogier had been ahead by just 2.9s – but Tänak obliterated his rival by 13s on SS6 to establish a 10.1s advantage.
However the Estonian cautioned that road cleaning had played its part, with him starting the stage fourth and Ogier second.
Adrien Fourmaux duly went faster still by 3.1s, meaning he’s now second by just 5.0s overall.
Rovanperä had been fourth overall but lost two minutes when he became the latest driver to stop and change a puncture.
“Nothing really happened,” Rovanperä said. “It’s weird sometimes – the whole day we’ve had huge hits on the tires and they are fine, and then we get a puncture when there was nothing to hit. That’s life sometimes – nothing we can do about it.”
Toyota team-mate Sami Pajari has been ejected from the fight completely meanwhile, retiring on the road section before the stage.
That means the overall leaderboard has shaken up, with Elfyn Evans the biggest beneficiary as he climbed to fourth.
M-Sport’s Grégoire Munster’s safe approach is paying dividends as he’s fifth – setting a strong third-best time on SS6.
Rovanperä is seventh, now behind Takamoto Katsuta who punctured earlier in the day, as Josh McErlean lost the gear readout on his dashboard.
