Ogier defends lead from Neuville

Click here for full WRC classification results after SS4

Sebastien Ogier has kept hold of his healthy lead at Tour de Corse from World Rally Championship title rival Thierry Neuville who wrestled second place from Kris Meeke in the afternoon loop.

The M-Sport Ford driver claimed victory on SS3 to push his lead out to 33.7 seconds on Neuville, who jumped ahead of Meeke on the stage, before the top two produced times within 0.1s of each other on SS4 to see the gap remain at over 30 seconds.

With Ogier taking three of the four stage wins on the opening day of action at his home event, the defending WRC champion looks on course for his just his second win at Tour de Corse in five years having also clinched victory back in 2016 with Volkswagen.

With Meeke five seconds off of Neuville for Citroen in third place, all four WRC manufacturers continue to hold the top four places with Toyota’s Ott Tanak closing in on Meeke on SS4 with 5.5s splitting the pair.

Tanak’s teammate Esapekka Lappi enjoyed a productive afternoon climbing up the order into fifth place but remains half a minute behind the top four and just 0.3s in front of M-Sport Ford’s Elfyn Evans. The midfield fight continues to intensify with Dani Sordo in seventh less than one second behind Evans – with 0.9s splitting Lappi to Sordo – while Jari-Matti Latvala is in touching distance for Toyota in eighth place.

Further back Andreas Mikkelsen dropped down to ninth place for Hyundai with M-Sport Ford’s Bryan Bouffier completing the top ten.