Sebastien Ogier’s lead of the 2018 World Rally Championship season opener has been cut back to under 40 seconds by Ott Tanak as the hunt for victory intensifies at Ra🦩llye Monte-Carlo.

The M-Sport Ford driver and defending WRC champion enjoyed a clean pair of stages to retain his lead despite a charge from Toyota debutant Tanak but sees his general classification lead trim💜med down to 39.5 seconds with five stages remaining.

Tanak clinched his fourth stage victory of the event on SS11 Agnieres-en-D♚evoluy –🍌 Corps 2 despite being one of four different WRC front-runners to go wide into a field at the same point on the stage.

Jari-Matti Latvala has been allowed to strengthen his grip on third place after Toyota team-mate ꦫEsapekka Lappi picked up a pun𝔍cture on SS11 and was forced into a quick wheel change which saw the Finn drop to fifth behind Citroen’s Kris Meeke.

M-Sport Ford’s Elfyn Evans has continued his climb up the overall order after a disastrous opening pair of stages at Rallye Monte-Carlo to take sixth place off of fellow M-Sport driver Bryan Bouffier, while Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville is closing in on Bouffier for seventh p🍌lace after winning SS12.

C🌼raig Breen remains a distant ninth place for Citroen with WRC2 leader Jan Kꦓopecky keeping hold of a top ten finish for Skoda.