Ott Tänak heads into the closing Rally Argentina Power Stage with a 40.9 second lead, the Estonian on the brink of his first win with Toyota Gazoo Racing. Thierry Neuville and Dani Sordo look comfortable in second and third respectively, but the fourth-place battle between Sébastien Ogier and Andreas Mikkelsen looks to be a Power Stage thriller.

Today’s route takes the crews to the Traslasierra Mountains for the legendary El Cóndor and Giulio Cesare stages, both of which are run in reverse direction this year. With a reported 100,000 people in the Cóndor stage alone, the atmosphere up in the hills is electric and the crews didn’t disappoint. Tänak is now taking no risks and has adopted a steady rhythm, a third and fourth fastest stage time enough to maintain a good advantage. Neuville used the first pass through El Cóndor to check his pace notes for the repeated run as the Power Stage and Sordo is focused on a clean run to secure a double podium for Hyundai.

Behind the leading trio, however, the battle for fourth between Ogier and Mikkelsen is intense. The rivals were split by 14.8 seconds last night but Mikkelsen has been chipping away at the deficit and the pair go into the 16 kilometre Power Stage with 3.8 seconds separating them. Elfyn Evans and Kris Meeke both moved up a position on the leaderboard after Esapekka Lappi picked up a puncture in the first stage; the young Finn is now down in eighth and having to adopt caution with no spare wheel. Teemu Suninen continues to hold ninth and the FIA WRC 2 Championship category is now headed by reigning champion Pontus Tidemand. The Swede looks set to claim his second victory of the season after team-mate Kalle Rovanperä rolled in the second stage.