Toyota's Elfyn Evans hung on to carry a slim three-second lead over teammate Takamoto Katsuta into Sunday's final day of Rally Sweden.
Hyundai's reigning world champion Thierry Neuville was also in the reckoning, the Belgian lurking 6.3 seconds behind the Welshman.
Katsuta is chasing his first win in the world championship while Evans can take the lead in the standings after finishing runner-up in the Monte Carlo opener won by teammate Sebastien Ogier, who is absent from Sweden.
The Toyota pair started the penultimate day just 0.6 apart, and were separated by only 0.1 early on Saturday, but Evans stretched his lead to 8.6 seconds before the Japanese battled back.
With the gap at six seconds, Evans then stalled on a junction during the closing stage.
“It’s a close fight and I think there have been ups and downs for almost everybody at some point. There were just a couple of small mistakes in the last two stages which were quite costly,” he said.
“When the times are so tight there’s not much margin for error. On the penultimate stage I just lost the line ever so slightly, and in the last one the rear stepped out under braking, I locked the wheels and stalled.”
Hyundai's Adrien Fourmaux, who was fourth overnight, ended up in a snowbank on stage 12 with no spectators around to help push the car out.
Three stages, and some 70km of timed action, are still to come on Sunday.
Evans keeps slender lead after three-way battle in Sweden
Image: Massimo Bettiol/Getty Images
Toyota's Elfyn Evans hung on to carry a slim three-second lead over teammate Takamoto Katsuta into Sunday's final day of Rally Sweden.
Hyundai's reigning world champion Thierry Neuville was also in the reckoning, the Belgian lurking 6.3 seconds behind the Welshman.
Katsuta is chasing his first win in the world championship while Evans can take the lead in the standings after finishing runner-up in the Monte Carlo opener won by teammate Sebastien Ogier, who is absent from Sweden.
The Toyota pair started the penultimate day just 0.6 apart, and were separated by only 0.1 early on Saturday, but Evans stretched his lead to 8.6 seconds before the Japanese battled back.
With the gap at six seconds, Evans then stalled on a junction during the closing stage.
“It’s a close fight and I think there have been ups and downs for almost everybody at some point. There were just a couple of small mistakes in the last two stages which were quite costly,” he said.
“When the times are so tight there’s not much margin for error. On the penultimate stage I just lost the line ever so slightly, and in the last one the rear stepped out under braking, I locked the wheels and stalled.”
Hyundai's Adrien Fourmaux, who was fourth overnight, ended up in a snowbank on stage 12 with no spectators around to help push the car out.
Three stages, and some 70km of timed action, are still to come on Sunday.
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