Sébastien Ogier led Central European Rally by nine-tenths of a second from Thierry Neuville on Thursday evening after two tricky speed tests in the Czech Republic.

The penultimate round of this year’s FIA World Rally Championship kicked off in style with a vibrant start ceremony at Prague Castle, where Czech president Petr Pavl flagged the cars away. Competitors then tackled two demanding asphalt stages south of the capital, with only 2.1sec covering the top five drivers at the close of play.

Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 HYBRID ace Ogier drew first blood by winning the short and sharp Velká Chuchle super special test on the outskirts of Prague. A third-best time on the night-time Klatovy stage was enough to keep him in front of Hyundai’s championship leader Neuville as Andreas Mikkelsen made it two i20 N Rally1 HYBRID cars in the top three, trailing his team-mate by 0.8sec overnight.

“It was pretty slippery,” Ogier reflected. “All okay, but nothing special. It is often like this on a Thursday – tomorrow there will be more action.”

Neuville, who can secure his first world title this week, was left frustrated after clipping a straw bale on SS1, damaging the bodywork of his Hyundai. To lock down the championship, the Belgian must outscore colleague Ott Tänak by two points while ensuring he doesn’t lose more than 10 to Ogier and 15 to Elfyn Evans.

Friday’s leg includes two remote service stops in the Czech town of Janovice nad Úhlavou, but regulations stipulate that bodywork may not be changed during these halts.

“I took off the aero at the front right by stupidly touching a straw bale and it will handicap me tomorrow,” he said. “I can’t be happy, to be honesty”

Takamoto Katsuta marked his return to the Toyota squad after being benched in Chile with an impressive second-fastest time on SS1. He dropped back to fourth after SS2 but finished the day just 0.3sec behind Mikkelsen. Tänak, meanwhile, was another tenth of a second behind in fifth, with Adrien Fourmaux completing the top six in his M-Sport Ford Puma Rally1 HYBRID.

Elfyn Evans, Sami Pajari and Grégoire Munster filled the next three positions as Oliver Solberg completed the top 10. The Swede is competing for outright Rally2 honours in his Škoda Fabia RS having already started the maximum seven point-scoring rounds in WRC2.

There was drama for Yohan Rossel, one of Solberg’s main rivals for this year’s WRC2 title. The Frenchman must win this rally in order to stay in contention for the crown but arrived at the finish of SS2 with a broken rear-right wheel on his Citroën C3 Rally2, dropping around half a minute. Rossel’s team-mate Nikolay Gryazin therefore led the category from Filip Mareš.