By alley - Oct 15, 2016, 6:31 AM ET

WRC: Sordo's lead tumbles as Ogier charges

Hyundai's Dani Sordo retained his Rally Catalunya lead on Saturday morning, but Volkswagen's triple World Rally champion Sebastien Ogier moved to within striking distance of the Spaniard.

Sordo managed to add another half second to his lead on the first two stages of Saturday morning, Vilaplana and Alcover-Capafonts, but running first on the road Ogier made the most of the cleanest conditions on the damper Querol and El Montmell stages later on and took 10 seconds out of Sordo's advantage.

Sordo was second on the stage on both occasions, but having complained of slight understeer problems for most of the morning now leads by just 7.7s in his i20 WRC from the charging VW of Ogier.

The second Hyundai of Thierry Neuville sits fourth, but was able to make inroads into third-place Andreas Mikkelsen's advantage as the pair squabble for the final podium spot.

Mikkelsen nudged slightly clear on the opening two stages of the day, but Neuville responded to bring the gap between the two back to 10s, despite echoing Sordo's understeer complaints.

The third i20 of Hayden Paddon occupies a lonely fifth, while Citroen's Kris Meeke continued his recovery from a roll on Friday morning with competitive times on three of Saturday morning's four stages.

Meeke was only denied the fastest time on Saturday's opening Vilaplana stage by the third Volkswagen of Jari-Matti Latvala – who rejoined after retiring on Friday afternoon – but lost time on the following stage as he picked up a puncture after cutting a right-hand corner.

He was nevertheless able to overtake M-Sport driver Mads Ostberg for sixth overall before the morning's end.

Ostberg is some way clear of eighth-placed Ott Tanak, who is celebrating his 29th birthday, while the second M-Sport Ford Fiesta driven by Eric Camilli finished the morning in ninth.

Craig Breen dropped out of contention after breaking his driveshaft on Vilaplana. The Irishman nursed his Citroen DS3 back to service, but is three minutes behind current 10th-place man Kevin Abbring.

LEADING POSITIONS AFTER SS11:

Pos	Driver	Car	Time	Gap
1	Dani Sordo, M.Marti	Hyundai	1h57m46.2ss	1h57m46.2s
2	Sebastien Ogier, J.Ingrassia	Volkswagen	1h57m53.9ss	7.7s
3	Andreas Mikkelsen, A.Jager	Volkswagen	1h58m31.3ss	45.1s
4	Thierry Neuville, N.Gilsoul	Hyundai	1h58m41.7ss	55.5s
5	Hayden Paddon, J.Kennard	Hyundai	1h58m54.6ss	1m08.4s
6	Kris Meeke, P.Nagle	Citroen	1h59m23.1ss	1m36.9s
7	Mads Ostberg, O.Floene	Ford	1h59m37.9ss	1m51.7s
8	Ott Tanak, R.Molder	Ford	2h00m57.5ss	3m11.3s
9	Eric Camilli, B.Veillas	Ford	2h02m14.7ss	4m28.5s
10	Kevin Abbring, S.Marshall	Hyundai	2h03m03.7ss	5m17.5s
11	Jan Kopecky, P.Dresler	Skoda	2h03m42.7ss	5m56.5s
12	Martin Prokop, J.Tomanek	Ford	2h03m46.8ss	6m00.6s
13	Pontus Tidemand, J.Andersson	Skoda	2h04m00.2ss	6m14.0s
14	Lorenzo Bertelli, S.Scattolin	Ford	2h05m06.7ss	7m20.5s
15	Craig Breen, S.Martin	Citroen	2h06m43.9ss	8m57.7s
16	Khalid Al-Qassimi, C.Patterson	Citroen	2h09m20.6ss	11m34.4s
17	Marius Aasen, V.Engan	Ford	2h09m23.2ss	11m37.0s
18	Valeriy Gorban, V.Korsya	Mini/BMW	2h10m32.9ss	12m46.7s
19	Pierre-Louis Loubet, V.Landais	Citroen	2h10m51.2ss	13m05.0s
20	Fabio Andolfi, M.Fenoli	Peugeot	2h14m20.1ss	16m33.9s
21	Nil Solans, M.A.Ibanez	Ford	2h17m16.8ss	19m30.6s
22	Jari-Matti Latvala, M.Anttila	Volkswagen	2h18m40.2ss	20m54.0s
23	Teemu Suninen, M.Markkula	Skoda	2h31m46.9ss	34m00.7s
24	Ole-Christian Veiby, S.R.Skjaermoen	Skoda	2h33m51.3ss	36m05.1s
25	Sander Parn, J.Morgan	Ford	2h36m30.6ss	38m44.4s
26	Jose Antonio Suarez, C.Carrera	Peugeot	2h45m45.4ss	47m59.2s
27	Ghislain De Mevius, J.Jalet	Skoda	3h07m23.6ss	1h09m37.4s