"I looked at the data from my car last night and decided not to make any changes to the set-up," added Hirvonen. "Everything feels the same as yesterday but I'm setting much better times.

"Maybe my bad road position yesterday was a bigger issue than we originally thought. Second is good but Jari-Matti is also attacking hard and there will be a big fight this afternoon."

Dani Sordo is next up, having slipped back to fourth and the Spaniard noted that he just doesn't have the confidence to push anymore. He now lies 1.4 seconds off the final place on the rostrum.

"Even keeping to the lines swept clean by Sebastien, we found ourselves brushing aside loose gravel for those running behind us in the order. There was just no grip and, to a certain extent, the car tended to do what it wanted to," said Dani.

"We lacked traction out of corners and the car was unstable under braking. We will have a look at the set-up at service to see if we can improve it for this afternoon's loop and try to fight our way back onto the podium."

Gigi Galli completes the top five, having moved in front of Chris Atkinson. He had a fairly clean run apart from a small spin 22 kilometres into the Monte Lerno test. Despite this though the Stobart Ford man still managed to set the fourth fastest time over that stage to accompany the third fastest times he managed in SS7 and SS9.

"I'm happy with my pace today and I will try and push hard this afternoon but these guys are going so fast in-front so I also need to be sensible for the points," he reflected. "Things have been going well this morning I have been pushing hard but not to the limit.

"Our times have been good and we have made up some places but it is important to stay concentrated and finish the event with good points. The car is feeling good and usually I find it hard to start off fast in the morning but today was no problem. We hit a rock near the end of the last stage and took a chunk out of the tyre but it was strong enough to hold up until the finish."

Further down the order, Chris Atkinson is now sixth with Henning Solberg seventh - albeit over a minute further back - and Urmo Aava eighth and on course for the final drivers' point in his privately entered PH-Sport-run C4 WRC.

Suzuki World Rally Team duo Toni Gardemeister and Per-Gunnar Andersson complete the top ten and neither reported any issues.

Of the rest, Conrad Rautenbach is eleventh, followed by Stobart Ford's Matthew Wilson, Munchi's man Federico Villagra, Subaru's Petter Solberg and Mads Ostberg.