Wales WRC: Ogier pulls out big lead as Latvala falls back

Having begun the afternoon loop with 7.7s in hand over Tanak, Ogier doubled his advantage in SS5, the 31.82km Myherin 2 test, before going on to eke out more time over the Estonian in SS6 and SS7.

The start of SS8 was delayed by around half an hour, but it when it finally got underway, Ogier's streak ended as he was beaten by the Hyundai of Thierry Neuville by a scant seven tenths.

But with Tanak losing another 14.7 seconds, Ogier - despite fearing a broken driveshaft on his Polo R WRC - now leads the way by 37.3 seconds heading into Saturday's stages.

Said Ogier: "I'm really happy that the day is finished because I think the driveshaft has just broken in there.

"It's definitely something we need to work on, because three cars suffering the same problem in the same day has never happened before," he added, referring to the issues of Andreas Mikkelsen and Jari-Matti Latvala.

The latter began the afternoon third overall, but began to haemorrhage time on SS7.

Latvala's problems promoted Neuville to third by the end of the afternoon, the Belgian's SS8 win also putting him ahead of teammate Hayden Paddon as well as the Citroen of Kris Meeke.

Meeke's teammate Craig Breen, however, was less fortunate, the Irishman dropping out of sixth place on SS5 with a roll. Citroen has yet to confirm if he will restart on Saturday under Rally2 rules.

Breen's exit means Dani Sordo (Hyundai) is now sixth, albeit a minute down on his teammates, ahead of Mads Ostberg (M-Sport Ford) and a fading Latvala.

Completing the top 10 are Stephane Lefebvre (Citroen) and leading WRC2 runner Esapekka Lappi.

Having suffered his driveshaft woes in the morning loop, Mikkelsen's slide down the rankings continued in the afternoon with no opportunity to repair his ailing Volkswagen.

The Norwegian is now almost nine minutes down on Ogier.

Standings after SS8:

Pos.	Driver/Co-driver	Car	Time/Gap
1	Sébastien Ogier Julien Ingrassia	Volkswagen Polo R	1h44m31.2s
2	Ott Tanak  Raigo Molder	Ford Fiesta RS	+37.3s
3	Thierry Neuville Nicolas Gilsoul	Hyundai NG i20	+1m09.0s
4	Hayden Paddon  John Kennard	Hyundai NG i20	+1m12.8s
5	Kris Meeke  Paul Nagle	Citroën DS3	+1m14.8s
6	Dani Sordo Marc Marti	Hyundai NG i20	+2m07.2s
7	Mads Ostberg  Ola Fløene	Ford Fiesta RS	+2m37.3s
8	Jari-Matti Latvala  Miikka Anttila	Volkswagen Polo R	+3m43.6s
9	Stephane Lefebvre Gilles de Turckheim	Citroën DS3	+4m31.6s
10	Esapekka Lappi  Janne Ferm	Skoda Fabia R5	+4m55.0s