Jari-Matti Latvala inched into the lead of the Tour de Corse-Rallye de France after the second day of competition on the Mediterranean island. The Finn slotted into first position on the second stage and holds a two-second advantage over Elfyn Evans. Andreas Mikkelsen has had a great day and the Norwegian moved up the leaderboard from seventh to hold the final provisional podium position.

Today’s route was scheduled to take in three stages, including the longest of the rally at 48.46 competitive kilometres. However, due to the atrocious weather conditions over the last couple of days, the same stage that was cancelled yesterday and due to be re-run again this morning was also lost, leaving the crews to tackle two stages and nearly 85 kilometres of competition.

Latvala, who started the day third, was on a charge from the outset and the Polo R WRC driver took the stage win to come within 1.7 seconds of last night’s leader, Evans. In the second and final stage, he lost some time with a gearshift problem and similarly Evans lacked confidence in the handling of the car, leaving the battling rivals split by two seconds at the end of the day, Latvala taking the advantage and displacing the Welshman from his top slot. Mikkelsen fared far better in the drier conditions today, the Norwegian leaping from seventh to third in the opening stage alone. Behind the leading trio, Kris Meeke has also moved up the leaderboard from eighth to fourth after a trouble-free day and Kevin Abbring, second last night, slipped to fifth. The Dutch driver had a slow puncture in the opening stage and was then too conservative with the car’s set-up in the final stage, dropping him precious time. Østberg was another to lose position and the Norwegian slips from fourth to sixth with just three stages remaining tomorrow. Former Tour de Corse winner Bryan Bouffier holds eighth ahead of Stephane Sarrazin, the Frenchman picking up an engine problem this morning. The top 10 is locked out by Ott Tanak.

Sébastien Ogier, provisionally 10th last night after losing time with a puncture, suffered more disappointment on the road section to the Bastia overnight Parc Fermé. A gearbox problem saw the Frenchman head into retirement and while he was fastest through the second stage today, he is down in 24th position. Robert Kubica was the only leading retirement of the day.

In the battle for FIA WRC 2 Championship honours, Frenchman Julien Maurin heads rising Finn Esapekka Lappi and the FIA Junior WRC Championship is being led by Quentin Gilbert, who is on track to provisionally seal the title on home soil.

Tour de Corse – Rallye de France – Unofficial Results after Section 4