Sebastien Ogier will take a slender 11.1s lead into the final day of Rally Italy Sardinia after surviving a brutal Saturday that served up trouble for several World Rally Championship crews.

Toyota’s Ogier managed to hold his nerve in a tense and pressure-filled battle with Hyundai’s Ott Tanak in incredibly challenging conditions where the risk of puncture was high. Knowing that Tanak would be on a charge, Ogier was unable to back off and manage the puncture risk. 

After suffering a puncture in the morning, a determined Tanak managed to win two of the three afternoon stages to nibble at Ogier’s advantage, which stood at 15.0s at the start of the loop. Ogier responded to win the final stage of the day by 0.4s from Tanak.  

“It’s been a long day, the afternoon was rough. It has been good race management,” said Ogier.

Toyota’s Kalle Rovanpera along with Ogier were the only Rally1 drivers to avoid any issues after 12 of 16 stages. The Finn did however lose four seconds to a small mistake in stage 10 but was able to successfully navigate through particularly rough stages without problems to hold on to third, 55.5s behind leader Ogier.

There was plenty of drama for his team-mates Elfyn Evans, Takamoto Katsuta and Sami Pajari, which shook up the leaderboard. 

Katsuta was the first to hit trouble when his front-right tyre punctured in stage 10, which required a stoppage to change the wheel, delaying the Japanese by two minutes. 

Evans and Pajari then suffered front-right failures after clipping exposed rocks in the road surface in stage 11, but it was the former who lost the least amount of time. Evans and co-driver Scott Martin only dropped 1m50s changing the wheel, while Pajari opted to continue on the deflated tyre before eventually stopping towards the end of the test.

Pajari did create a moment for Tanak who had to take evasive action to pass the stricken Toyota on his way to winning the test.

“The only thing I could do was hit the rocks. We have so many safety systems but no warning, no marshal and nothing on the system,” said a frustrated Tanak.

Championship leader Evans benefitted from the time loss suffered by Katsuta and Pajari to move ahead of the pair into fourth, 4m33.5s adrift, with Pajari fifth [+4m56.3s] and Katsuta seventh [+6m11.4s].

Meanwhile Adrien Fourmaux’s Saturday was one to forget. The Hyundai driver started the day 2.1s behind Ogier and firmly in the victory hunt before suffering a costly puncture in the first pass through the Lerno – Su Filigosu, 24.34km test.

Fourmaux climbed to from ninth to seventh in the afternoon before the Lerno – Su Filigosu stage came back to bite him, when he lost control and rolled his i20 N. Fourmaux and co-driver Alex Coria were unhurt in the incident that left the car on its roof and partially blocking the road. 

Team-mate Thierry Neuville and the M-Sport duo of Josh McErlean and Gregoire Munster navigated through the day without any stoppages after rejoining the rally following retirements on Friday. 

Nikolay Gryazin ended the day as the top Rally2 runner in sixth overall, although the Skoda driver is not registered for WRC2 points this weekend. The WRC2 lead was held by Emil Lindholm.   

Four stages await the crews on Sunday to conclude the rally.