Sebastien Ogier’s lead of the 2018 World Rally Championship season opener has been cut back to under 40 seconds by Ott Tanak as t🌟he hunt for victory intensifies at Rallye 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 trimmed down to 39.5 seconds with five stages remaining.

Tana🐠k clinched his fourth stage victory of the event on SS11 Agnieres-en-Devoluy – Corps 2 despite being one of four different WRC front-runners to go wide into a fiel🐠d at the same point on the stage.

Jari-Matt𒐪i Latvala has been allowed to strengthen his grip on third place after Toyota team-mate Esapekka L♊appi picked up a puncture 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 place after winning SS12.

Craig Breen remains a distant ninth place for ꩵCitroen with 🐻WRC2 leader Jan Kopecky keeping hold of a top ten finish for Skoda.