Citroën C3 WRC driver Kris Meeke has marginally extended his advantage at the head of the Rally Mexico leaderboard during Saturday morning’s first loop of stages. The Briton is now 23.5 seconds ahead of Sébastien Ogier with Thierry Neuville third for Hyundai.

Today is the longest day of the event and takes in two loops of three stages, before a trio of super special stages round off the action closer to León. Starting the day with just over 20 seconds in hand, Meeke didn’t win any of the first three stages but in the leading trio on each he was able to pull out a few more seconds with a trouble-free morning. Ogier has similarly run without problems, although picked up cosmetic damage on the Fiesta WRC after running wide and hitting the undergrowth. He is now 43.6 seconds ahead of Thierry Neuville in the lead i20 Coupe WRC, the Belgian admitting to being unable to catch his rivals on speed alone.

Ott Tänak, in fourth, has not been entirely comfortable with the set-up of his Fiesta this morning but the Estonian moved ahead of Juho Hänninen and is firmly ahead of Hayden Paddon, who also leapfrogged the Finn. All three Hyundais are now running well after the team identified last night’s problem as blocked fuel filters, although Paddon struggled for grip in the first stage and then clouted a rock, picking up a puncture in the final stage of the loop. Hänninen is fighting illness and has now dropped to sixth and is being challenged by team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala. The Finn has had some problems with the brakes and then on a big attack in the final stage of the loop he too hit a rock and punctured. 

Eric Camilli now leads the FIA WRC 2 Championship category, having snatched the position from Pontus Tidemand. The Frenchman has had a great run this morning and the rivals are split by just 1.1 seconds going into the afternoon stages. They are eighth and ninth respectively with Elfyn Evans climbing to 10th.

Following problems on last night’s super special stages, Dani Sordo dropped into Rally 2 and is 12th overall, but the Spaniard did set two fastest times this morning. Stéphane Lefebvre, running seventh, slid off the road and couldn’t rejoin, and Lorenzo Bertelli rolled his Fiesta.