WRC Rally Sweden: Mikkelsen's spin lets Ogier close in

The day had started much more encouragingly for Mikkelsen - who was thrust into the rally lead on Friday afternoon when both Ogier and Jari-Matti Latvala went off the road - as he outpaced Ogier on the opening Fredriksberg stage and stretched his advantage to half a minute.

But Ogier, who had already moved up from fourth to third thanks to Mads Ostberg puncturing a rear tyre on his Citroen when he clipped a snow bank, then set the pace on the next three stages.

That brought him past Thierry Neuville into second, while Mikkelsen lost a few seconds in a ditch on Rammen before having a costly spin at the start of Vargasen.

By the end of the loop Mikkelsen's advantage had come right down to 1.7s, with Neuville also within 12.4s of the lead.

Hyundai driver Neuville had been very frustrated that he could not match the VWs' pace early in the day, thanks in part to the weight disadvantage of carrying two spare wheels when his rivals had just one, but he was second fastest to Ogier, just 0.3s adrift, on Vargasen.

His increased pace dented Ostberg's initial hope of swiftly getting back in the podium fight. The puncture had only cost Ostberg 45s and at first he was able to close back in on Neuville while pulling away from fifth-placed Ott Tanak. But Neuville's strong SS14 run brought the gap from third to fourth back up to 38.8s.

Tanak still holds a lonely fifth for M-Sport, with Hayden Paddon fending off Martin Prokop for sixth.

Kris Meeke's recovery drive after his Friday mistake has now brought him up to ninth and onto Elfyn Evans's tail, while Yuriy Protasov - who spun on the short Hagfors Sprint stage - has fallen to 10th.

Latvala and Robert Kubica both set several strong stage times as they fight back from outside the top 20 following their Friday crash and propshaft failure respectively.

Another spin into a ditch for Latvala hampered his comeback slightly on Vargasen, but he lost less than a minute in that incident.

LEADING POSITIONS AFTER SS14:

AUTOSPORT Race Centre Live coverage from Sweden resumes at 12.15pm UK time