The second stage of the morning saw problems for the early pace-setter, Hyundai’s Hayden Paddon, as his car shut down with no electrical power and he had to reset it before carrying on. He did continue but dropped time – and was only 11th on the stage – dropping to sixth overall as a result.
However, Toyota’s Jari-Matti Latvala showed that road position didn't appear to be such an issue, as he took the stage win, running second on the road behind championship leader, Sebastien Ogier, who managed sixth on the stage.
Elfyn Evans was second fastest, despite reporting changing levels of grip while third went to Ott Tanak, making it two Fiestas in the top three of the stage. Thierry Neuville was fourth fastest with a very happy Craig Breen fifth, extolling the virtues of his C3 WRC and thanking his team for the work put in to improve it.
In WRC2, former works VW driver Andreas Mikkelsen was the class of the field, despite saying that the stage was starting to become very rough with the passing of the world rally cars. He heads Teemu Suninen and Pontus Tidemund overall after three stages.