Thierry Neuville grabs Rally Sweden lead

It had looked like it would be the recovering Ogier who deposed Mikkelsen from the lead on Saturday morning, as two errors from the Norwegian allowed the reigning World Rally champion to reduce a half-minute gap to just 1.7 seconds heading to service.

But Ogier struggled in the afternoon, frustrated by the stage conditions he was encountering as first man on the road after the Historic field had created very different lines in the melting snow.

While Mikkelsen's advantage over Ogier quickly grew again, it was Neuville who was setting the outright pace.

Winning the opening Fredriksberg stage immediately took him up to second past Ogier, and then he saved two fresh tyres for the concluding Vargasen stage - helping him to another stage win and a 1.5s overall lead ahead of Mikkelsen.

Ogier remains firmly in contention in a top three covered by just 9.6s with three nine-mile stages to decide the rally on Sunday morning.

Mads Ostberg and Ott Tanak continue to hold fourth and fifth places, while Hayden Paddon edged away from the pack behind in sixth.

Elfyn Evans and Kris Meeke made the most of running further down the order to close on Prokop, with Meeke claiming his first stage win on snow on Rammen. The two Britons are just 0.4s apart in eighth and ninth, 19s behind Prokop.

Their pace means Yuriy Protasov is now a lonely 10th, under no pressure from behind after new Hyundai man Kevin Abbring lost time with a trip off the road, though he stayed 11th.

Robert Kubica took his first stage win in Sweden on the short Hagfors Sprint. That took him past Henning Solberg into 15th overall, but a mistake on the next stage swapped their places again, as Jari-Matti Latvala closed right in behind them.