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Ott Tanak opened up a significant lead on day two of the Rally of Spain and will go into the weekend with an advantage of 26.8 seconds.
Needing to win to keep his title hopes alive, the Estonian was on the attack all day in his Toyota Yaris and saw his aggressive approach paying off.
Victory on SS2 – the opening stage of the day – and a second place on stage three moved him to the top of the leaderboard as overnight pacesetter and title rival Sebastien Ogier slid wide in his Ford Fiesta to tumble down the overall standings.
When Tanak’s team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala suffered a puncture on the fourth stage, Tanak’s second place behind Andreas Mikkelsen in his Hyundai was enough to send him 11.7 seconds clear overall.
And when Elfyn Evans’ Fiesta ran into trouble on the final stage of the day, Tanak saw his lead balloon to almost 27 seconds from Dani Sordo in his Hyundai.
Ogier sits in seventh place, 39.7 seconds down, while the other man in the three-way title tussle – Thierry Neuville – was just shy of a minute down in ninth place in his Hyundai.
Ireland’s Craig Breen was fifth going into the final stage having rode out a bad spin, but damage to his Citroën C3 rear wing took a toll and he dropped to eighth.
“Don’t know what happened but the top of the rear aero fell off,” he tweeted afterwards. “Maybe we caught a branch. It was a little bit tricky towards the end without it.”
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