Neuville headed to noon service with a 5.1s lead over Evans after a powerful morning headlined by a blistering time on stage 9.
9-time Monte Carlo winner Ogier dropped from second to 3rd, however ended the loop 7.7s adrift.
Ott Tanak maintained fourth (+1m18.6s) regardless of struggling an engine difficulty on his Hyundai. M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux (+2m06.4s) produced a managed drive to finish the loop in fifth forward of team-mate Gregoire Munster, who climbed to sixth (+3m39.1s) in entrance of Hyundai’s Andreas Mikkelsen (+3m44.1s).
Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta moved to eighth, as his restoration from shedding 5 minutes to an off on Friday continued.
There was drama earlier than the levels begun as Tanak’s i20N failed to fireplace up in parc ferme, which required a tow again to service the place his staff had been in a position to revive the automobile.
Tanak was in a position to full stage 9 (Esparron/Oze 18.79km) however once more suffered an engine difficulty harking back to the issue he suffered on Thursday evening.
“This morning we had some engine hassle the place it’s typically driving and typically not,” mentioned Tanak, who posted the sixth quickest time.
The stage itself offered a troublesome problem for the crews, because of patches of frost and areas that had been extremely slippy, and it wasn’t lengthy earlier than it caught out one of many drivers.
Mikkelsen flew off the street on the first nook and was fortunate his i20 N discovered an embankment on the exit to make use of as run-off.
Photograph by: McKlein / Motorsport Pictures
Andreas Mikkelsen, Torstein Eriksen, Hyundai World Rally Group Hyundai i20 N Rally1
“In the course of the nook I flew off the street and we’re tremendous fortunate to be right here,” mentioned Mikkelsen. “After that, for positive you don’t have any confidence in something anymore.”
It was his team-mate Neuville that stole the present nonetheless, because the Belgian produced a shocking effort to assert his fourth stage win of the occasion. The 2020 Monte winner clocked a time 9.6s quicker than rally chief Evans, who discovered the situations “troublesome to evaluate”.
Nonetheless, extra importantly Neuville was 18.8s faster than Ogier, who slid to 3rd general. The eight-time world champion put the time loss all the way down to his data being “too protected”.
“I used to be properly awake this morning,” mentioned Neuville, who jumped to second general, 6.5s behind Evans. “I anticipated the situations to be worse to be sincere, however I had a good run.”
Whereas Neuville set the tempo, M-Sport’s new signing Munster turned heads by setting his first high three stage time of his top-flight WRC profession to maneuver into sixth general.
Ogier responded on Stage 10 (Les Nonieres-Chichilianne, 20.04km) with a stage win of his personal because the battle for victory took one other twist.
The Frenchman navigated a difficult mountain stage that included a greasy decline to publish a time 2.1s quicker than Neuville.
However it was Neuville who shot to the highest of the leaderboard as Evans was with out hybrid increase, which price him 9.5s, handing a 0.9s rally result in the Hyundai driver. In consequence, the trio had been cut up by 5.1s.
Photograph by: Toyota Racing
Elfyn Evans, Scott Martin, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota GR Yaris Rally1
Katsuta delivered his greatest drive of the rally to date to clock the third quickest time forward of Tanak, who was in a position to handle his engine difficulty via the take a look at.
Neuville prolonged his lead over Evans to five.1s after sharing the stage 11 (Pellafol/Agnieres-en-Devoluy – 21.37km) victory with team-mate Tanak. Neuville’s time got here regardless of some points together with his pacenotes.
Ogier was 2.6s slower than the duo, whereas Evans dropped an additional 4.2s however held onto second general.
Citroen driver Nikolay Gryazin held a 1.3s lead over Pepe Lopez in WRC2, whereas Oliver Solberg retired from the rally with a double puncture.
