Jari-Matti Latvala moved a big step closer to Rally Sweden victory as he started the final day with the fastest time on stage 19.
The Ford driver pulled a further 7.6 seconds clear of the chasing Mikko Hirvonen’s Citroen, bringing his lead up to half a minute with five stages to go.
Latvala said he knew that a quick start to the last day could make all the difference.
"It gives a bit more of a relaxed feeling now," he said. "I knew that if he was going to come back, he was going to come back on the first one, so that’s where I needed to be quick."
Hirvonen admitted that he was less comfortable in his car this morning.
"I was not confident at all and had a couple of big slides, and it’s very slippery and was a narrow road," he said. "I took it steady, I didn’t want to make a mistake when I didn’t have a good feeling.
"We did some changes to the car just to see if we could save tyres a bit more and it wasn’t so good. Better to be here than over there [off the road]."
The ’top Norwegian’ fight over third place continued to gradually close up, as Mads Ostberg went 1.7s quicker than Petter Solberg to bring the gap down to 9.4s, despite the Adapta Ford driver feeling he could have gone much quicker.
"I tried to push now but it’s very, very difficult conditions," said Ostberg. "It seems like a lot of drivers have gone off the road so there’s no clean line for me to follow. We did a clean run and I just hope it’s good enough."
Solberg reckoned a poor end to the stage had cost him.
"It’s not too bad, but I lost everything at the end," said the Ford driver. "We just have to keep on pushing, that’s it."
Evgeny Novikov promised yesterday that he would not let Sebastien Loeb catch him for fifth place, and going four seconds quicker than the champion on stage 19 was a good start.
"I won’t let him catch us today, for sure," said Novikov. "We will go flat-out. It’s fifth position or nothing, that’s for sure."
Citroen team leader Loeb reckons Novikov’s 48s advantage will probably be enough.
"There was too much snow in the stage, I couldn’t get a really good rhythm," said Loeb. "It was too slippery. I tried to stay on the road. I think he will stay in front."