Ogier pulls out lead on Neuville

Click here for Tour de Corse classification after SS7

Sebastien Ogier has fortified his lead at Tour de Corse midway through Saturday’s action to pull out a 41.6s lead on Thierry Neuville.

After defending a half-minute advantage on his World Rally Championship title rival on Friday afternoon, the M-Sport Ford driver has pushed on with his advantage at the top of the classification to take a comfortable margin on the chasing field.

Hyundai’s Neuville will be focusing on defending second place from Kris Meeke with just a 5.2s gap on the Citroen driver while Toyota’s Ott Tanak remains in close contention in fourth place 2.1s off of Meeke.

Tanak’s Toyota teammate Esapekka Lappi holds a distant fifth place with over 20 seconds splitting him from the front four while the Finn has a similar time gap to Hyundai’s Dani Sordo in sixth place.

Sordo is involved in an intense battle with M-Sport Ford’s Elfyn Evans for sixth place with the Spaniard taking the spot outright on SS7 after the pair set identical times at the end of SS6.

Latvala is aiming to joined the fight for sixth place 3.3s off of Evans with Bryan Bouffier a distant 10^th place.

Nine-time WRC champion Sebastien Loeb has rejoined the action under Rally 2 rules after crashing out on SS2 and claimed two stage wins on the Saturday morning loop.