DOLGELLAU’S Elfyn Evans is in second place going into today’s final stages of Rally Mexico.

Evans is 35.8 seconds behind Toyota Gazoo Racing team-mate Sébastien Ogier.

After a close contest with Esapekka Lappi (Hyundai) on Friday, Ogier came into the day 5.3 seconds from the lead and set a brilliant time to win the first stage of the day – just as an accident for his rival unfortunately brought their battle to an early end.

Even though he had now gained the lead by almost half a minute, Ogier continued to show strong pace through the rest of the morning loop, and then produced an incredible stage win by 8.1s in the first test that ran in the afternoon.

His margin heading into the final day is 35.8s ahead of team-mate Evans. The Welshman increased his advantage to third-placed Thierry Neuville (Hyundai) in the morning’s first stage, but his rival responded with some stage wins to reduce the gap to 4.3s by the end of the day, setting up an exciting showdown for today.

Evans said: “It’s been a solid day out there and a close fight. Of course, I would have preferred to increase the gap behind us rather than concede some time. Thierry has ever so slightly had the upper hand but it’s been very close on most of the stages with only a few tenths of a second in it.

“Things have been working well inside the car and I’ve been feeling quite comfortable, but there’s still a big fight on.

“Tomorrow has a mix of stages with sections we’ve driven already and others we haven’t, so it could be tricky to choose the tyres and nail the setup. But we’ll try to prepare well tonight and do our best to secure the position.”

End of day three (Saturday): 1 Sébastien Ogier/Vincent Landais (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) 2h35m37.6s 2 Elfyn Evans/Scott Martin (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +35.8s 3 Thierry Neuville/Martijn Wydaeghe (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +40.1s 4 Kalle Rovanperä/Jonne Halttunen (Toyota GR YARIS Rally1 HYBRID) +1m34.0s 5 Dani Sordo/Cándido Carrera (Hyundai i20 N Rally1 HYBRID) +2m21.2s 6 Gus Greensmith/Jonas Andersson (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +10m33.4s 7 Adrien Fourmaux/Alexandre Coria (Ford Fiesta Rally2) +11m05.0s 8 Emil Lindholm/Reeta Hämäläinen (Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo) +11m11.0s 9 Oliver Solberg/Elliott Edmondson (Škoda Fabia RS Rally2) +11m52.2s 10 Kajetan Kajetanowicz/Maciej Szczepaniak (Škoda Fabia Rally2 evo) +12m54.3s

 What's next?

The final day is made up of four different stages, totalling just over 60 kilometres. It kicks off with a fourth visit to the Las Dunas super special, which is followed by the longest stage of the weekend: the 35.63 kilometres of Otates. The last two stages feature sections already driven twice in Saturday’s Derramadero test, with San Diego to precede the rally-ending Power Stage that finishes over El Brinco’s eponymous jump.