Hyundai’s Dani Sordo has powered into the lead of Rally de Portugal after Friday’s morning loop of stages, the Spaniard taking a 4.6 second advantage after a close fight that has seen three different drivers win as many stages. Kris Meeke is second but just two-tenths of a second ahead of the returning Hayden Paddon, but with six drivers all split by just over 10 seconds the battle is already intense on the sixth round of the FIA World Rally Championship.

The 52nd Rally de Portugal got underway last night and after the start ceremony in front of the Medieval Castle of Guimarães the crews headed straight to the opening super special stage in Lousada. Ott Tänak took the plaudits on this short test but this morning it was a different story in the long dusty gravel stages to the north of Matosinhos. The Estonian, riding high after a dominant victory on the previous round in Argentina, was on the sidelines in only the first stage; after hitting a rock, damage to the cooling system forced him to park up with uncertainly about whether he can rejoin again tomorrow. Toyota’s nightmare continued in the following stage when Jari-Matti Latvala broke the front suspension, putting the second of the team’s three Yaris WRCs on the sidelines and leaving Esapekka Lappi to uphold honours.

Sordo, eighth after last night’s super special stage, has been in the mix all morning and was up to fourth after the first of the three stages in the loop. Despite feeling he was too cautious in the second, he moved into third and then after ‘pushing like hell’ the Spaniard took the lead with the fastest time as the crews headed back to Matosinhos for the mid-leg service. Behind the Spaniard, Meeke admitted to feeling comfortable in the C3 WRC for the first time and despite losing time with an intercom problem in the second stage, briefly took the lead with the stage win. His rhythm wasn’t so good in the final stage but nevertheless the Northern Irish driver is hot on the pace and pushing hard to stay ahead of Paddon. The Kiwi driver, who returns to the Hyundai team for the first time since Rally Sweden in February, was immediately on it and set fastest time in the day’s opener. Despite saying the feeling in the car has been terrible, he has managed to power into third.

Sébastien Ogier had a difficult start running first on the road on the sandy stages but with conditions in the third stage seemingly a little better for the front-runners, the Frenchman has moved from eighth early this morning to fourth, just 7.3 seconds adrift of the lead. His nearest Championship rival, Thierry Neuville, is a further 2.1 seconds adrift with some handling problems on his i20 Coupe WRC. His team-mate Andreas Mikkelsen is also in the mix and with only 1.1 seconds separating them, the inter-team battle is sure to continue. Craig Breen is seventh in Citroen’s second C3 and hasn’t yet found the perfect rhythm but the Irish driver is only 14.8 second off the lead. Elfyn Evans made a great start and was an early second overall but a spin in the second stage dropped him back to fifth. With the car moving around a lot in the final test of the loop he dropped more time and is 5.5 seconds behind Breen and 2.7 seconds ahead of team-mate Teemu Suninen. Mads Østberg rounds out the top 10, the Norwegian lacking confidence in the C3 WRC, and Toyota’s sole remaining runner – Esapekka Lappi – is down in 11th struggling with a lack of grip.

In the FIA WRC 2 Championship category, Stephane Lefebvre has taken the early lead and the French Citroen R5 driver is nearly 30 seconds ahead of Gus Greensmith already. Series leader Pontus Tidemand hit problems in the first stage and dropped over a minute with a puncture; he is seventh. In the FIA Junior and WRC 3 Championships, Emil Bergkvist tops the leaderboard by 11.2 seconds over Ken Torn.