Ott Tänak takes the overnight Rally Finland advantage after a day in which he and Mads Østberg have diced for tenths of a second stage by stage, the lead between them changing no fewer than four times. The Estonian has been super impressive throughout the day, especially considering he has run third on the gravel roads, and described today’s 126 kilometres of competition as close to perfect. Østberg has never let up the pressure, underlining the potential of the latest upgrades on the Citroen C3 WRC. Jari-Matti Latvala also continues to push hard and with changes to the Yaris WRC, now understands what he needs to do tomorrow to further up the pace. He is 23.1 seconds adrift of team-mate Tänak.

This afternoon’s loop of repeated stages proved trickier with rutted roads and tyre wear becoming an issue for some of the contenders. Tänak led into the afternoon but Østberg immediately jumped ahead. He consolidated that lead with another fastest stage time to claim the smallest one tenths of a second advantage over his rival. He managed to pull out another nine-tenths in the third stage but Tänak fought back in the last two forest tests, two stage victories catapulting him back into the lead by 4.3 seconds going into the final run of the Harju Street Stage in Jyväskylä. While the gap between the two remains just 5.8 seconds overnight, Østberg had to ease the pace to conserve tyres over the rutted and rocky stages. Latvala is now happy with the direction the Yaris WRC is going in and the Finn was able to up the pace, albeit mixing speed with caution to avoid punctures. His only error of the afternoon was running wide in the final forest stage.

Hayden Paddon continues to fly the flag for Hyundai and the Kiwi is fourth, despite dropping to fifth behind Teemu Suninen for most of the afternoon. He was hesitant in the opener where hanging dust restricted vision, has briefly been off the road and then slowed when he thought he’d picked up a puncture. He and Suninen have battled all the way however and just five-tenths of a second separated them as they headed into Harju. Suninen has run well all afternoon, but continues to feel he needs to find more pace. He was also lucky to escape problems in the final street stage when he lost the brakes and dropped more than 10 seconds to overnight 9.7 seconds adrift. Reigning FIA World Rally Champion Sebastien Ogier has, like Championship rival Thierry Neuville, struggled running second on the dry and dusty stages but has fared pretty well, despite getting caught out in a couple of ruts. He is now sixth, benefitting when team-mate Elfyn Evans slowed in the penultimate stage to give him a marginally better road position tomorrow. Evans is just 2.2 seconds further adrift in seventh now. Esapekka Lappi has had a better afternoon and now has confidence in the car. He is hot on the heels of Ogier and Evans and enjoying the fight with his rivals. After his opening stage puncture, Craig Breen has been on catch-up but the Irishman continues to push in ninth. However, he and team-mate Khalid Al Qassimi had a scare in the final street stage, both dropping time with a problem with the fuel pressure relief valve. Neuville remains 10th, the Belgian struggling with grip and consistency all day long. After going off the road this morning, Andreas Mikkelsen has moved from 30th to 16th overnight.

The FIA WRC 2 Championship continues to be dominated by teenager Harri Rovanperä. The 17-year-old is competing on his home rally for the first time and has won eight of the 10 stages to take a 32 second lead over Eerik Pietarinen, who won one of the stages. Emil Bergkvist, who was heading the FIA Junior and WRC 3 Championships, picked up a puncture in stage nine and lost his lead to Ken Torn, the Estonian taking a 21.7 second advantage into Saturday’s stages.

Rally Finland – Unofficial results after Section 3