WRC Rally GB: Sebastien Ogier clear of huge podium battle

Citroen duo Mads Ostberg and Kris Meeke plus M-Sport Ford's Mikko Hirvonen - in his World Rally Championship farewell - have got ever closer in their fight to be best of the rest through Saturday morning.

Both Hirvonen and Ostberg have spent spells in second, with the Norwegian holding it by seven tenths of a second as they had for midday service. Ostberg had earlier been at the back of this pack in fourth, before putting on a spurt.

Meeke is only 0.7s behind Hirvonen in fourth place, having been third for a while.

Thierry Neuville is 22s further back in the top Hyundai, and puts half of that deficit down to a series of mistakes under braking on the Dyfnant stage.

Elfyn Evans completes the top six and is within 15s of Neuville.

Latvala lost three minutes in his incident on Clocaenog East, and has been unable to make any progress back up the order so far as the crash removed the rear spoiler from his Volkswagen.

Front damper damage later became apparent as well, and Latvala is only 10th as he heads for service to finally get repairs.

The third VW of Andreas Mikkelsen was fastest on all four of the morning's gravel stages after rejoining under Rally2 following a crash on Friday morning. He remains back in 52nd overall.

The only other stage win - on the short asphalt course around Chirk Circle - went to eighth-placed man Henning Solberg.

LEADING POSITIONS AFTER SS13: