Ogier hangs onto lead as Fourmaux grinds to a halt

The eight-time world champion claimed two of Friday afternoon’s four gravel stages that made up a much shorter leg than usual courtesy of the WRC’s trial of a new event format.

Starting fifth on the road, Ogier made the most of his road position and managed to hold off charge from Hyundai’s Tanak to take a 4.5s lead into Saturday.

Hyundai’s Dani Sordo enjoyed a strong finish to the day to jump up to third [+33.2s] as Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta slotted into fourth [+34.5s]. Championship leader Thierry Neuville faced the worst of the road conditions and managed to limit his time loss to 36.6s to sit fifth, while nearest title rival Elfyn Evans ended the loop a further 20.7s behind in sixth.

M-Sport Ford’s Gregorie Munster completed the Rally1 field in seventh after team-mate Adrien Fourmaux retired with an issue.

The second pass through the afternoon’s earlier stages proved much more abrasive compared to the first pass, which meant the focus was on preserving tyres.

Rally leader Ogier responded to Tanak’s victory on stage two that had closed the gap to 1.8s and, having won the first pass of the Osilo-Tergu, 25.65km stage, he added another stage victory on the second pass which hosted stage three.

Ogier opted not to push as hard as he did in the first run but was still able to beat Tanak by 2.9s to open up his lead to 4.7s – while Tanak was also managing his rubber.

Tyre trouble reared its head again as third-placed Fourmaux developed a slow left-rear puncture five kilometres into the stage. The M-Sport driver was able to reach the stage end but by then the tyre had delaminated, ripping the bodywork from the rear of his Puma. Fourmaux ceded 49.9s in the process as he plummeted from third to sixth in the overall standings.

Sordo capitalised on Fourmaux’s problem to leapfrog Katsuta and the French driver to move to third after posting the third fastest stage time, 8.8s slower than Ogier.

The recovering Evans managed to take 1.2s out of Neuville on the stage but remained in seventh after his costly puncture on the day’s opening stage.

However, Fourmaux’s woes continued in stage four [Sedini-Castelsardo 13.26km], as he ground to halt 2.3km into the stage with an electrical issue, which required Fourmaux and co-driver Alexandre Coria to work on the car.

Neuville emerged with an impressive stage win by 3.7s…