SS14, Pont de Calzola 1:Puras again

Panizzi had exerted some pressure on Puras in the first of leg three's stages, cutting the Spaniard's lead by some six seconds on SS13, but the Citroen driver now has a 33-second lead with just two more stages of the rally remaining.

Some consolation for Panizzi will be the fact that he won't be pressurised by his team mate for second place after Didier Auriol finished SS14 25 seconds off the Panizzi's time. The gap between the two Frenchmen is now over a minute.

Richard Burns is now in line to pick up some drivers' championship points when he set the third fastest time through Pont de Calzola. The Subaru driver is lying in sixth overall after Francois Delecour dropped back when his Ford Focus also developed brake problems on SS14.

It was a good stage for the Imprezas, with Petter Solberg and Markko Martin setting the fourth and fifth fastest times - and these two also hold fourth and fifth in the overall leaderboard.

Burns is two points behind Carlos Sainz in the battle for third place in the championship, so would need to secure at least fourth place in Corsica to leapfrog the Spaniard in the points table. But it remains to be seen if his team mates will sacrifice their positions for Burns' championship aspirations.

Harri Rovanpera was sixth fastest, followed by team mate Auriol in seventh and Colin McRae in eighth. Piero Liatti was ninth fastest in his Hyundai Accent, and his team mate Alister McRae set an identical time to that of Achim Mortl to round out the top 10.

For full times from SS14, click here.

For full rally live timings, click here.

For rally itinerary, click here.

For full entry list, click here.