Meeke pulls away after six stages

The reigning Intercontinental Rally Challenge champion left service with only a three-second gap back to the chasing Skodas of Jan Kopecky and Juho Hanninen.

But three straight stage wins for Peugeot UK driver Meeke, who was revelling in the car's handling after lunchtime set-up changes, mean he completed the loop 14s clear of Kopecky and 21s ahead of Hanninen - having pulled out 8s on SS5 alone.

Guy Wilks has been frustrated by his inability to keep up with the leaders on this rally. Unhappy with his Skoda UK Fabia's handling, he is now 41s behind Meeke and gradually being caught by Peugeot Portugal's Bruno Magalhaes, who has shown good pace since his transmission was changed at service and swiftly reclaimed fifth from Alberto Hevia.

Further back, new Kronos Peugeot signing Thierry Neuville has passed Spanish champion Sergio Vallejo for seventh.

Pos  Driver            Car          Time/Gap
 1.  Kris Meeke        Peugeot      56m16.2s
 2.  Jan Kopecky       Skoda         + 14.5s
 3.  Juho Hanninen     Skoda         + 21.9s
 4.  Guy Wilks         Skoda         + 41.2s
 5.  Bruno Magalhaes   Peugeot       + 52.5s
 6.  Alberto Hevia     Skoda       + 1m00.9s
 7.  Theirry Neuville  Peugeot     + 1m13.9s
 8.  Sergio Vallejo    Ford        + 1m20.0s
 9.  Franz Wittmann    Peugeot     + 1m38.2s
10.  Jose Suarez       Mitsubishi  + 4m19.5s