Neuville stretches Corsica lead

Though the opening stage of the latest loop of three had to be abandoned following Ari Vatanen's accident in the course car, once the action resumed with the delayed SS7, Neuville stamped his authority with a pair of stage wins.

That allowed the Kronos Peugeot to edge slightly away from Skoda's Jan Kopecky, who remains in a very tight battle for second with two other Fabias.

Freddy Loix closed to within 4.3s of Kopecky as he took third from Mikkelsen on SS8, but the latter is still within 1.3s of a potential podium spot as well.

Brief leader Bryan Bouffier is yet to make up any ground in his post-puncture recovery and remains sixth behind Pierre Campana.

Leading positions after SS8:

Pos  Driver                Team/Car                  Time/Gap
 1.  Thierry Neuville      Peugeot Belux (Kronos)  1h52m23.0s
 2.  Jan Kopecky           Skoda                      + 23.4s
 3.  Freddy Loix           BFO Skoda                  + 27.7s
 4.  Andreas Mikkelsen     Skoda UK                   + 29.0s
 5.  Pierre Campana        Munaretto Peugeot          + 52.8s
 6.  Bryan Bouffier        PH Peugeot               + 1m09.8s
 7.  Julien Maurin         Ford (private)           + 2m53.5s
 8.  Bruno Magalhaes       Peugeot Portugal         + 3m01.9s
 9.  Toni Gardemeister     TGS Skoda                + 3m03.2s
10.  Jean-Mathieu Leandri  Peugeot (private)        + 4m08.2s