Bernd Casier crashed his Peugeot on the opening stage, blocking the road for the competitors behind him. This caused five drivers to receive notional times, and the rally to suffer a slight delay. Casier will not re-start on Friday, instead his car will be sent back to Belgium to be repaired in time for a Belgian Championship event next weekend.

Then, on the second stage, Andrea Navarra had a puncture that cost him around a minute: a big blow to his title hopes. The Italian struggled to the finish of the stage without having to stop, but his overnight placing is now eighth, more than a minute behind Vouilloz.

This means that the highest-placed Abarth after Scandola is Belgian driver Freddy Loix in fourth, 23 seconds behind the leader.

The top Super 1600 car is the Citroen C2 of local driver Antonio Galli in a highly-creditable fifth, who precedes the Super 2000 Peugeot of another Swiss driver, Christian Jaquillard.

Florian Gonan is the top Mitsubishi driver in seventh, while Luca Betti's new Honda Civic Type R R3 – on only its second IRC rally – is just outside the top 10, having wisely steered clear of trouble on the opening three stages.

The action now continues on Friday. Competitors will leave parc ferme at 08:45 hours [local time] before heading for seven stages that comprise the second leg.

The day starts with a rude awakening, as the competitors will first tackle the 37.31 kilometre Les Cols stage, which contains a seven kilometre gravel section in the middle.

The crews then head straight back to service at 11:40, before contesting SS5, SS6 and SS7, with another service at 14:55.

The final loop of three stages – SS8, SS9 and SS10 – concludes with the last service halt of the day at 18:15, before the first car enters parc ferme at 19:00. In total, crews will contest 118 competitive kilometres on Friday, adding to the 30.23 competitive kilometres that made up the opening leg.