Pontus Tidemand took all 10 stretch wins in WRC2 during Friday and besides the class leadership he is also as high as seven in total in the rally.

- We have a lead of 51 seconds and it feels good, but everything can happen here in Mexico and the rally is long so we must continue to be smart tomorrow too, Pontus sums up.

Oliver Solberg led the WRC3 class ahead of Friday and showed good speed initially at stage three. But Solberg was forced to rally after driving on a large rock that damaged the car. He will not restart on Saturday.

Sébastien Ogier has won the Mexican World Cup rally five times and shows fine form in the pursuit of a sixth triumph in this year's third World Cup competition.

The six-time world champion has a 13.2-second lead to Teemu Suninen, teammate Elfyn Evans is in third place just over 33 seconds behind Ogier.

- I am happy with the day, obviously it is good to lead. I think we all had challenges today. It's never easy to drive here but I've liked it, Ogier told WRC.

Thierry Neuville and Dani Sordo were both forced to break for the day with electric errors. For Finnish Esapekka Lappi, the day ended even worse. His car started burning shortly after the finish and was completely destroyed.

Here, the Finn tries to run away from the fire

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