Neuville holds onto lead from charging Evans

Neuville held a 16.1s rally lead on Friday morning after early leader Sebastien Ogier suffered a wheel failure on his Toyota during stage 2, but the Belgian faced a stern challenge from Toyota’s Evans in the afternoon.

Neuville, piloting a Hyundai carrying a tribute to the late Craig Breen, witnessed his lead reduce to 5.7s over Evans heading into Saturday.

M-Sport-Ford’s Ott Tanak completed the loop third overall, 30s adrift, with Hyundai’s Esapekka Lappi sitting fourth a further 3.4s back.

Ogier managed to recover from his early trouble to sit fifth (+1m23.7s) ahead of Pierre-Louis Loubet, Takamoto Katsuta and world champion Kalle Rovanpera, who also lost more than two minutes to a wheel failure in stage 2.

After a morning run under clear skies, the clouds gathered for the afternoon. It prompted all of the crews barring Ogier, Evans and Rovanpera to take at least two wet compound tyres for the loop.

Ogier resumed his blistering pace from the morning to win stage 5, the first test of the afternoon, which was held in dry conditions.

The Frenchman took his fourth stage win of the rally by 4.8s from team-mate Evans, who made inroads into Neuville’s 16.1s rally lead, as the latter dropped 2.4s to the Welshman.

Tanak and Rovanpera clocked identical times to sit third fastest, 5.8s shy, the pair appeared to benefit from set-up changes made at midday service.

“Definitely better than the morning. Now the car is how it should have been from the start, we made a mistake with the set up [in the morning],” said Rovanpera, who had struggled for outright pace on the muddy asphalt roads.

Lappi also showed signs of improved pace in the sister Hyundai, but there was drama for Katsuta, who suffered a small spin which cost him valuable time.

Light rain fell prior to the start of stage 6 to create damp conditions and a tyre choice headache.

Tanak, Loubet and Katsuta elected to fit the two wet tyres they were carrying, but it proved to be an incorrect decision with the road not wet enough to gain an advantage, despite drizzle falling towards the end of the test.

Lappi, equipped with a mix of hard and soft tyres, came through to chalk up the stage win as the Finn pipped the charging Evans by 0.7s.

“We believed in what our team said [about the tyres] and it was the right call,” said Lappi, who moved ahead of the struggling Tanak on wets, into third…