Tour de Corse: Ogier stamps authority at Tour de Corse with healthy lead

Aiming to win his home round for the first time since 2013, Ogier has enjoyed a flawless drive over the opening four stages as he gradually built a time buffer over his rivals.

At the start of SS3, Sarrola-Carcopino 1, Ogier’s nearest rival Kris Meeke trailled by 15 seconds but suffered a puncture which lost him over two minutes and saw Neuville take up second place.

After conceding time to Ogier throughout the day, the Hyundai Motorsport driver will start SS5 44 seconds adrift while his team-mate Dani Sordo lost a chunk of time over SS4 to drop from third to ninth.

That promoted Jari-Matti Latvala into third with fellow Volkswagen Motorsport driver Andreas Mikkelsen in hot pursuit with fourth place just 1.3 seconds behind.

Craig Breen enjoyed a solid day in the Abu Dhabi Citroen in fifth ahead of Hayden Paddon as Eric Camilli produced one of his better opening day performances to lead fellow M-Sport Ford driver Elfyn Evans in seventh and eighth respectively.

Sordo ended SS4 on matching times with Mads Ostberg for ninth and tenth with Kris Meeke ten seconds further back in 11th, as WRC2 leader Jan Kopecky in the Skoda Fabia R5 claimed 12th overall despite there being no notable retirements on day one.