Ireland's Craig Breen is in fifth place after the first four stages of the Che Guevara Energy Drink Tour de Corse.
Breen is 1:18.7 behind overall leader Sebastian Ogier, and is just over 20 seconds off a podium place at present.
Ogier has built a strong lead as he bids for a fourth world rally drivers' title after a clean sweep of victories.
The Volkswagen Polo R driver won all four stages in Corsica and finished the first of three days of competition with a 44-second lead over Thierry Neuville's Hyundai i20, which had handling issues during the morning.
After a much-improved afternoon showing, Jari-Matti Latvala was the other man on the podium, 14sec behind Neuville, and his advantage over fourth-placed team-mate Andreas Mikkelsen was 1.3sec.
Dungannon's Kris Meeke and co-driver Paul Nagle are in 11th place overall, 2:51.9 off the leaders.
