A second pass through Arganil was the last of the repeat runs of the day but the track surface had deteriorated badly. Elfyn Evans was 14 seconds slower on his second run after picking up a rear slow puncture near the finish.
Kalle Rovanperä stayed clear of trouble to post an 11min 53.8sec target and Dani Sordo dropped 2.1 seconds to the defending World Champion, who saw his lead grow to 2.9 seconds. Esapekka Lappi overcame a right-rear puncture to retain fifth overall behind Pierre-Louis Loubet and Thierry Neuville.
Oliver Solberg increased his WRC2 lead to 11.1 seconds after his closest rival Teemu Suninen stopped to change a flat tyre that he sustained on a straight piece of track.
Frenchman Yohan Rossel moved up to second place. Andreas Mikkelsen was the quickest of the leading group, but Gus Greensmith drove to the finish on a puncture and Adrien Fourmaux stopped in the special to change another tyre. Sami Pajari also stopped again.
Car 11. NEUVILLE/WYDAEGHE
“It’s a bit better now. It’s hard to predict how much we need to save the tyres. I could have done a bit more. But I think it was a clever run.”
Car 69. ROVANPERÄ/HALTTUNEN
“It’s really rough now. The stage is in a much worse condition than I was expecting and much worse than last year. Let’s hope we have enough tyre left for the next one. The car and the tyres are taking a beating.”
Car 8. TÄNAK/JÄRVEOJA
“It’s rough. No question, Nothing new there!”
Car 33. EVANS/MARTIN
“Couple of km from the end there (rear slow puncture). Getting though it. We keep going.”
Car 6. SORDO/CARRERA
“I tried my best. Two seconds is not a big gap and I see some places where I can gain some more time Kalle is World Champion, so I am happy.”
Car 4. LAPPI/FERM
“Had a puncture. Right-rear. Ten million rocks, I don’t know which one I hit! I noticed it 10km before the finish.”
Car 7. LOUBET/LANDAIS
“Nice. Good stage. It was a great feeling. We know the next stage will be tough. We need to stay on the edge.”
Car 20. GREENSMITH/ANDERSSON
Finished the stage on a front puncture and dropped more time to Solberg. ”No idea. You can be as clean as you want but I am on Pirellis. A championship can be decided by a tyre. It’s a joke, really.”
Car 21. SOLBERG/EDMONDSON
“Crazy. I had no tyres, I have still 20km to go and I took it very easy in there just to get through. We will see for the next…”
Car 23. SUNINEN/MARKKULA
Stopped 6.1km into the stage. “Puncture on the straight. Seems to be normal. We just have to continue.”
Car 24. MIKKELSEN/ERIKSEN
“It’s a shame about the stage with the tyre off the rim. That is really irritating. That compromised our tyre choice for the rest of the loop. I think we could have made a difference on this loop.”
Car 25. FOURMAUX/CORIA
Stopped after 5.4km to change a punctured tyre. The Frenchman had used his last spare, dropped five and a half additional minutes and lost any chance of victory. “We wanted to change the tyre because we had another puncture but then the knuckle (?), we lost a piece and we had to do it with the bar. It takes a lot of time. It’s not our day. It’s like that.”
Car 26. ROSSEL/DUNAND
“I am a little bit cautious and I lose a little bit of time but it was the best solution for this afternoon. We will see what happens on the last stage because the tyres are a little bit dead!”
Car 31. PAJARI/MÄLKÖNEN
Stopped 10.7km into the stage. Another puncture..?