Latvala crashes to hand Rally Germany lead to Neuville

The Volkswagen driver entered Saturday's tests with a 14.8s advantage over his nearest rival Thierry Neuville before coming to an abrupt halt before completion of SS12.

His co-driver's door had been flapping open as he set off to tackle the 26.5 kilometre stage and culminated with him going off-road for an undisclosed reason midway through it.

The Finn has since retired and will return for Sunday's two stages under Rally2 conditions.

Neuville has therefore been promoted to the lead of the event, where he now has a slender advantage of just 1.1s over Citroen's Dani Sordo.