Northern Ireland's Kris Meeke is just two seconds off the lead after enjoying an impressive showing on the first day of the Australian Rally.
Jari-Matti Latvala kept his outside hopes of winning the World Rally Championship alive as the 30-year-old Volkswagen driver edged clear of the Dungannon man in his Citroen DS3.
Championship leader Sebastien Ogier, who will clinch a third successive drivers' title if he finishes ahead of Finn Latvala in this rally, was 4.6 seconds adrift of the leader in his Volkswagen.
Ogier, who leads the Championship by 93 points with just three events remaining after this one, revealed he and co-driver Julien Ingrassia had a small transmission problem in the final stage of the day.
However, the Frenchman tweeted: "Julien and I can smile about what we did today. We won't lead tonight, but we gave all we had. We'll have no regrets if we do a rally like that."
Norway's Andreas Mikkelsen (Volkswagen) and Spain's Dani Sordo (Hyundai) rounded out the top five.
