Thierry Neuville has again extended his advantage at the head of the Rally de Portugal leaderboard after the repeated afternoon loop of stages and the Belgian goes into tomorrow’s closing stages with 39.8 seconds in hand to Elfyn Evans.  The Welshman and third-placed Dani Sordo have pushed hard but a last stage half spin cost the Spaniard time and he finished 17.4 seconds adrift of Evans.

This afternoon’s re-run of the stages proved tricky for the crews with rain and standing water in places. Neuville was cautious in the rough sections of the first stage losing more time than he’d hoped but, like this morning, set a hot pace in the longest stage to overnight with a healthy advantage with 51.53 competitive kilometres and five stages remaining. Evans was fastest through the afternoon’s opener and thanks to Sordo’s spin in the final stage added a few seconds to his advantage.

Teemu Suninen is fourth, the Finn on the limit and closing to within 4.7 seconds of Sordo by the end of the day. He’s also in a fight with fellow countryman Esapekka Lappi who is 11.1 seconds adrift and also pushing to the maximum with some moments along the way. Following Kris Meeke’s retirement from an accident he and co-driver Paul Nagle walked away from unscathed, Mads Ostberg has climbed to sixth but is over three minutes adrift of the lead on his return to Citroën after a three-rally absence. He managed the C3’s set up well this morning but struggled more in the afternoon after changes during service. Craig Breen is a distant seventh but was relieved to get through the day.

Following an early event puncture, Pontus Tidemand has climbed to the head of the FIA WRC 2 Championship standings and the Swede is also eighth overall for Škoda. He heads Lukasz Pieniazek by over a minute with Citroen’s Stephane Lefebvre - who led the category going into the final stage - dropping two positions when he was forced to stop and change a puncture. Dennis Rådström continues to hold the advantage in the FIA Junior and WRC 3 Championships, his lead now over four minutes to Callum Devine who picked up a puncture in the final stage. Emil Bergkvist, who led early afternoon, rolled.

Rally 2 runner Jari-Matti Latvala set another fastest time this afternoon and he, Sebastien Ogier - who also won a stage - and Andreas Mikkelsen will doubtless be chasing Power Stage points on Sunday such are their positions further down the leaderboard.

Rally de Portugal – Unofficial results after Section 5