WRC Tour of Corsica: Jari-Matti Latvala deposes leader Elfyn Evans
Jari-Matti Latvala snatched the Tour of Corsica lead away from Elfyn Evans on the final stage of Saturday, despite suffering gearbox issues
Latvala looked set to top the stage but at the final split his times dropped behind Volkswagen team-mate Sebastien Ogier's.
World Rally champion Ogier - badly delayed on Friday - finished the stage 8.7 seconds ahead of Latvala, who surprisingly was still second fastest.
The Finn confirmed at the stage end that he encountered a gearbox problem late on.
"It was OK but we had a problem with the gearbox," said Latvala. "I struggled with downshifting. I had to use the manual gear lever but we got through, that's the main thing, now we need to get to service and change the box."
Latvala did make it back to service so will be able to defend his lead on Sunday morning.
M-Sport Ford driver Evans enjoyed a strong run through the monster 30.1-mile stage but could not capitalise on Latvala's misfortune and lost his lead.
He did however complete the stage third fastest and was only 3.7s off the pace of Latvala, so remains within 2s overall.
The Welshman was visibly disappointed at the stage end.
"I felt the car was moving a lot and maybe my rhythm was not as good as yesterday," said Evans. "We're still here though, that's the main thing. It's all still to play for and we have to do the utmost we can and go from there."
Andreas Mikkelsen remained in a lonely third place ahead of Citroen driver Kris Meeke, who was able to steal fourth away from Kevin Abbring.
Meeke was sixth fastest through the stage, while Abbring struggled down in 13th.
Mads Ostberg maintains sixth place overall, closing the gap to Abbring to just 5.6s.
Hayden Paddon leapfrogged Bryan Bouffier and Stephane Sarrazin into seventh in the overall standings.
Ott Tanak completes the top 10, ahead of Dani Sordo who once again closed the gap to the Estonian. Sordo is now just 8.7s adrift after completing the stage fifth fastest.
Julien Maurin extended his WRC2 lead over Esapekka Lappi to 19s after a phenomenal run through SS6, where he was 16.8s quicker than the Finn.
LEADING POSITIONS AFTER SS6:
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