Australia WRC: Neuville into rally lead after Mikkelsen crashes

Mikkelsen, who was the overnight leader in only his third rally for the team, ran wide into a bank two kilometres into Newry, the second stage of the day. 

His i20 picked up a double puncture, but he carried just one spare tyre, meaning he was unable to compete in the morning's final stage and tumbled down the order. 

"It's devastating, but what can you do?" Mikkelsen said. "We are trying to push as hard as we can, sometimes you get away with it, but not today. With our tyre choice, we didn't consider two spares. We were saving our tyres for later."

The fast-charging Jari-Matti Latvala moved into second place, just 6.3 seconds behind leader Neuville after topping Newry. 

Neuville won the longest stage of the rally - Nambucca, but missed a junction in Newry and reported gearbox issues at the end of the stage.

Kris Meeke currently completes the top three, he missed the same junction as Neuville and five-time champion Sebastien Ogier. 

Ogier was 20.6s off the leading time in Nambucca and a further 28.9s in Newry. He ended the morning in seventh place, just over 15s adrift of Hayden Paddon. 

His M-Sport teammate Ott Tanak sits in fourth ahead of Rally Australia debutant Craig Breen, who is in an impressive fifth position in his Citroen C3. 

Stephane Lefebvre is eighth in the third Citroen, he spun and stalled in Newry but did enough to keep Rally GB winner Elfyn Evans at bay. The Welshman labelled the grip in the morning as ‘horrendously bad’. 

Evans sits ninth in the overall classification with Esapekka Lappi rounding out the top 10.

Joshua Suttil