Rally Portugal: Thierry Neuville on brink of WRC victory

He started the day with a 39.8 second advantage over Evans and after the four morning stages his lead remains healthy at 37.5s.

There is a tight battle for the final podium place led by Evans' team-mate Teemu Suninen, who is being chased by Toyota's Esapekka Lappi and Hyundai's Dani Sordo.

Sordo ended Saturday third overall but was dropped to fourth overnight with a 10s penalty for dislodging two of the bails on a Porto street stage roundabout late on Friday.

Suninen was therefore promoted to third with a 5.8s lead over Sordo with Lappi still in fifth but only 5.3s behind the Spaniard.

Suninen stretched his advantage in third place during the morning stages and is 10.7s ahead of fourth place now held by Lappi.

Lappi and Sordo swapped fourth place several times across the morning and Lappi is currently 4.1s ahead, aided by being four seconds quicker than Sordo on the Luilhas stage.

It will be Suninen's first WRC podium if he maintains his place.

Citroen's Mads Ostberg and Craig Breen continued in a distant sixth and seventh overall respectively after delays earlier in the rally, being disadvantaged by running first in the order this morning.

Sebastien Ogier, Jari-Matti Latvala and Andreas Mikkelsen continued in Rally2 running today, following trouble on Friday, hoping to score up to five power stage points in the final stage. Latvala and Ogier also both won a stage this morning.