Tänak, at the wheel of an i20 N Rally1, also marked a personal milestone by reaching 400 FIA World Rally Championship stage wins — the latest coming on the day’s final test, Sever / Albergaria. He had earlier snatched the lead from Thursday night super special winner Elfyn Evans on Friday’s opener and went on to win four of the day’s 10 stages in total.

Adrien Fourmaux matched Tänak’s early pace and hit back with two stage wins of his own to close the gap to just two-tenths of a second at midday. But his challenge ended in the afternoon when he clipped a hidden rock at a hairpin, breaking the front-left steering on his Hyundai and retiring on the spot.

That briefly promoted Takamoto Katsuta to second, but it wasn’t long before Ogier moved ahead. The Frenchman struggled with an overly soft set-up in the morning but made changes and found form in the second loop, pulling 20.1sec clear of Katsuta by day’s end.

“If there were as many championship titles [as stage wins], it would be even better,” Tänak joked. “But still, a nice number. It's been demanding, especially the second loop. We couldn’t really find the sweet spot and were struggling a bit. But the last two stages were clean, so that’s good.”

Kalle Rovanperä made it three Toyotas in the top four, ending the day just 1.2sec behind Katsuta. The two-time world champion admitted the surface felt more slippery than expected but is now in position to eat into Toyota team-mate Elfyn Evans’s championship lead — with the Welshman down in seventh, behind defending champion Thierry Neuville and Sami Pajari.

Neuville was lucky to avoid damage after striking a bank on SS2. He recovered to end the leg just 4.4sec behind Rovanperä, while Evans, burdened with road-opening duties, struggled for traction and slipped back to more than a minute off the lead pace.

Grégoire Munster and Josh McErlean placed eighth and ninth respectively for M-Sport Ford while Oliver Solberg led WRC2 and rounded out the top 10.

There was disappointment for shakedown pacesetter Mārtiņš Sesks, whose day unravelled early with a wheel change on SS2. His troubles worsened when he picked up a three-minute time penalty later in the leg.

Saturday’s route features seven more gruelling stages, covering 122.92 competitive kilometres — including two passes through the iconic Amarante test.