Estonian Tänak was 0.7 seconds behind Esapekka Lappi after two days of the fifth World Cup in Sardinia.
During the third day of the rally, things went in completely different directions for the top duo.
Lappi crashed and had to break for the day, but Tänak took over the lead and jerked.
The last stretch of the day was interrupted in a quarter when the Frenchman Adrian Fourmaux went too wide in a right turn, crashed and blocked parts of the road.
Both the driver and the map reader survived without injuries.
When the route was resumed, the Estonian was able to keep his lead in the total despite a red flag being accidentally shown to him out on the road.
- I received red flag messages, but I do not really know what happened.
Today was clearly very good for me.
I had a good feeling in the car and after the first leg I managed to check the lead, he says to the WRC after the day.
Second before the final leg Chris Breen and third Dani Sordos were also hit by the red flag.
Due to the chaos during the finish, it is unclear exactly how big Tänak's lead will be before Breen and Sordo before Sunday's four final runs.
But the lead will be at least 46 seconds as it was before Saturday's last leg.