Sébastien Ogier extended his Rally Sweden lead over Hayden Paddon to 15.9sec after winning the second pass through the Vargäsen stage on Saturday afternoon.
Conditions were much improved compared with this morning’s deep snow and the Frenchman speared his Volkswagen Polo R through the test 5.7sec faster than Paddon’s Hyundai i20, despite a massive slide 1km after the start.
Ogier has created some breathing space for himself with just tonight’s super special stage around Karlstad trotting track and tomorrow’s live TV Power Stage remaining.
Paddon appeared to have settled for second, the Kiwi explaining: “It’s about maintaining my position now. We went into this stage 10sec behind Ogier and that’s like a minute to anyone else. We need to be smart. We struggled a bit in there, I think we used our studs in the stage before.”
Jari-Matti Latvala and Andreas Mikkelsen completed a 1-2-3 in the stage for Volkswagen, while Dani Sordo eased the pressure on himself in sixth by widening his advantage over Henning Solberg to 20.9sec. Solberg is now only 1.5sec ahead of Craig Breen.
Kris Meeke finished with the right rear tyre of Citroën’s DS 3 pushed off the rim, the Briton bouncing in and out of a ditch near the finish, and Yazeed Al Rajhi retired his Ford Fiesta RS after going off the road.