Thierry Neuville started the stage 10th on the road and set a time of 13min 09.3sec but Sébastien Ogier regained some lost time in the later twisty section of the stage and beat the Belgian by 3.3 seconds to increase his overall lead to five seconds.
Martinš Sesks was the quickest of the three M-Sport Ford WRT drivers who carried out road-sweeping duties in increasingly cloudy conditions. The Latvian also got the better of Dani Sordo.
Takamoto Katsuta was 5.9 seconds faster than the Ford driver, although he dropped 2.6 seconds further behind sixth-placed Adrien Fourmaux, who went on to win his second stage of the weekend. The Frenchman trimmed Elfyn Evans’s hold on fifth to 5.8 seconds.
Oliver Solberg managed to nibble 1.5 seconds out of Sami Pajari’s hold on third – the gap was trimmed to 4.2 seconds.
Intercom issues continued to hinder Nikolay Gryazin and Jan Solans continued to edge away from the Lancia driver in WRC2. Roope Korhonen closed to within 0.6 seconds of Gryazin but fellow Finn Teemu Suninen was on a charge: he was second quickest behind Solans and moved up to second overall in WRC2 – 4.6 seconds behind Solans.
Car 18. KATSUTA/JOHNSTON
“Finally, it feels okay. I could still make it better in some places. Now I have a bit of a feeling in the car and I can drive. I spoke to Ott (Tänak) and I decide to drive and enjoy and now I feel better.”
Car 33. EVANS/MARTIN
“Quite messy and difficult to be clean and efficient. I am sure the rain is coming at some point.”
Car 99. SOLBERG/EDMONDSON
“First time through this stage in this car and its very different to the Rally2 last year. I struggled with traction. It’s really tricky.”
Car 5. PAJARI/SALMINEN
“It was quite tricky and very different to the first stage. Still, we should be quicker but it wasn’t too bad. The fight is really right so we should be all the time on it.”
Car 16. FOURMAUX/CORIA
“It’s going a bit quicker and quicker but the last part is getting rutted. I don’t recognise the car from yesterday and we need to work on it.”
Car 1. OGIER/LANDAIS
“The twisty section at the end is always difficult but it where you can make differences. It is already rutted and it is going to really bad in there this afternoon, especially if there is rain in there.”
Car 11. NEUVILLE/WYDAEGHE
“I had a good stage, honestly. Just at the end there were a lot of stones everywhere. Maybe I wasn’t cutting enough. Overall, the feeling was not too bad. It won’t be decided in the first four stages this morning – wait for this afternoon!”
Car 95. ARMSTRONG/BYRNE
“Not too sure, the first stage was quite good for us but this one was a lot more difficult. It was quite sandy, bumpy and narrow. We need to look at the splits and see where we were losing time.”
Car 55. MCERLEAN/TREACY
“It was okay, still losing some traction from the rear. It’s obviously a big one with a lot of rhythm changes. I expected the rain now.”
Car 22. SESKS/FRANCIS
“There was a lot of cleaning and one place on narrow tarmac I thought we had broken something. I hit the rear. We didn’t damage anything.”
Car 6. SORDO/CARRERA
“I push a little more but it was quite complicated. It was better than the first stage. It is slippery and you don’t know the limit.”
Car 20. KORHONEN/VIINIKKA
“The ground was really soft and some moved rock on the road but, otherwise, good conditions.”
Car 25. GRYAZIN/ALEKSANDROV
“The road is quite bad. We are trying. It is still possible to drive but without communication with the co- driver (intercom) it is tricky.”
Car 36. SOLANS/SAN JUAN
“Suninen is catching us a bit, but we are keeping Korhonen and Yohan behind. We are still leading and will try and keep it to the end.”