WRC Tour of Corsica: Tanak leads temporarily after Evans delayed

Although Evans dropped from first to third when caught behind Meeke's slow-moving car on Friday's final stage, Autosport understands that stewards will award Evans the same time as Tanak for the stage to reflect the fact that he was delayed.

That would mean the M-Sport driver ends Friday with a 4.5s advantage.

Evans had started the afternoon brilliantly, snatching the lead from Tanak on the first stage of the afternoon by 1.4 seconds and extending that to 4.5s after stage five.

But the M-Sport driver caught Meeke's Toyota on the day's final stage and lost 10.4s to Tanak, falling to third place behind Thierry Neuville and 5.9s from the front.

Meeke had damaged his suspension on the previous stage and although he had managed to repair it, he limped through stage six and simply did not see Evans behind him.

An apologetic Meeke revealed he thought there was a three minute gap between him and Evans when starting the stage.

M-Sport has requested that Evans be given the same stage time as Tanak for the stage, and that request is set to be officially agreed to within the next hour.

Tanak ended Friday as the temporary rally leader despite admitting he was battling a damper issue in his Toyota.

Neuville also benefited for now as he moved up to second in his Hyundai, just 5.3s behind Tanak. That will be an 8.8s deficit to Evans when the order is reset.

Dani Sordo's pace dropped in the afternoon, losing 14s to team-mate Neuville, but the Hyundai driver continued to hold fourth position after a clean loop of stages.

A conflicted Teemu Suninen was trying to find the perfect balance between pushing and keeping his M-Sport Ford Fiesta on the road, but the Finn kept his nose clean to end Friday in fifth overall.

Sebastien Ogier's pace improved throughout the afternoon as he climbed from eighth to sixth, but his gains were marginal as he continued to struggle with his Citroen C3.

The defending champion began the loop 24.2s down on the lead but ended it 31.8s back, admitting that he "could not drive his car faster" as he battled with understeer.

A dejected Esapekka Lappi finished the day in seventh place, but unhappy with his and his Citroen's performance, declaring "an R5 car could have gone faster".

Jari-Matti Latvala's hold on sixth was derailed on stage five when he picked up a slow puncture aboard his Yaris. The Finn stopped on stage to change the wheel and dropped over three minutes as a result.

Sebastien Loeb's fightback from a broken steering arm this morning continued as he profited from Meeke and Latvala's dramas to end the first day eighth overall.

Eric Camilli continues to lead WRC2 in his Volkswagen Polo R5 and is now ninth overall, ahead of the Citroen C3 R5 of Yoann Bonato.