Volkswagen retained the lead after day three of Rally Sweden, but they saw a change of drivers at the top.
Jari-Matti Latvala won stage eight by 5.8 seconds over teammate Andreas Mikkelsen but the bigger story was the defending world champion and rally leader entering the day Sébastien Ogier getting stuck in a snow bank and losing 4 minutes and 30.5 seconds on that stage.
Ogier would recover to win six of the remaining eight stages on day three and finishing second in the other two stages but could only get up to ninth position, 3 minutes and 38.4 seconds back of his teammate.
Latvala bookended the day winning stage sixteen, a half second over Ogier. The Finn leads Mikkelsen by 3.6 seconds overall. Norwegian Mads Østberg currently rounds out the podium, forty-three seconds back. Mikko Hirvonen is fourth, top M-Sport Ford driver. He is a minute and 2.7 seconds back of his fellow Finn Latvala with his teammate Ott Tänak six seconds back of him in fifth position.
Kris Meeke is over two and a half minutes back of the leader in sixth with stage eleven winner Henning Solberg in seventh position, 15.8 seconds back of the Northern Irish driver. Pontus Tidemand is the top Swede, currently eighth, 1.4 seconds back of Solberg. Ogier is ninth, fifty seconds back of Tidemand with Elfyn Evans rounding out the top ten.
Robert Kubica dropped from eleventh place, 59.9 seconds back to twenty-ninth over twenty-four minutes back. The Polish driver lost nearly six minutes on stage twelve and stage fourteen and is over twenty-four minutes back of Latvala.
Hyundai's second rally back has been better than the first but still difficult. Thierry Neuville had front right wheel carrier damage end his day early on stage eight while Juho Hänninen also had a front right issue end his day on stage twelve. Both cars will restart tomorrow for the final day. Hänninen is thirtieth a minute and 20.1 seconds back of Kubica. Neuville is in last, over forty-four minutes and thirty-seven seconds back of Latvala.
The final day of Rally Sweden will feature eight stages beginning at 1:55 a.m. ET.
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