WRC Rally of France: Latvala extends lead over Mikkelsen

Latvala saw his already slender lead whittled down to just two tenths of a second as Mikkelsen took a second stage victory of the rally by 0.5s on SS4.

But Latvala responded to the threat to his lead in fine style over the course of the following two stages, taking 4.3s out of Mikkelsen on SS5 before finding a further four seconds on SS6.

That gives Latvala an advantage of 8.5s over Mikkelsen with just the evening stage in Strasbourg city centre left to run on Friday.

Citroen's Kris Meeke has consolidated his grip on the bottom step of the podium, failing to match the pace of the VW drivers but steadily escaping the clutches of his pursuers. The Ulsterman is now almost half a minute clear of Hyundai driver Dani Sordo.

Mads Ostberg leads a tight three-way battle for the final spot inside the top five, despite battling with transmission issues during the afternoon.

He holds a 2.4s advantage over Mikko Hirvonen, with Robert Kubica, who dropped almost 10 seconds with a spin on SS5, a further 1.2s back.

Ogier's problems continued after his early gearshift sensor trouble and four-minute penalty, as the Frenchman suffered a broken front-left damper that has left him almost nine minutes off the pace.

Elfyn Evans meanwhile dropped out of fourth position as a result of a 1m40s penalty awarded for arriving late to midday service, a result of an electrical failure on the road section following SS3.

The M-Sport Ford driver is 2m22s away from Latvala in 10th overall, behind Bryan Bouffier and Martin Prokop.

LEADING POSITIONS AFTER SS6: