Fresh from the 30-minute service break, Sebastien Ogier resumed his fight for the lead on SS15, setting another rapid stage time and trimming Jari-Matti Latvala’s advantage to 16.1sec.
The 21km Leustu was the first of just two ‘new’ stages remaining this afternoon, and Ogier took the opportunity to make the most of his road position and a racing line swept clean by Latvala and Solberg.
At the finish control, Latvala said the time loss was ‘not too bad’ considering the amount of largely dry, slippery gravel he had encountered.
Sebastien Loeb was the stage winner and narrowed the gap to Petter Solberg to 1.3sec. Solberg, however, was feeling more confident of keeping the world champion at bay having fitted a new set of dampers in service. “The car’s completely different, I can push again,” said Petter.