Thierry Neuville withstood attacks from Andreas Mikkelsen and Esapekka Lappi to maintain his Rally Sweden lead on Friday afternoon, and will start Saturday heading a Hyundai 1-2-3. Toyota driver Lappi had taken second from Mikkelsen on the afternoon's Hof-Finnskog opener and closed to within 2.1 seconds of Neuville in the process. But Lappi then slid off the road on the following Svullrya stage, filling his Yaris's air intake with snow and leaving its car in low-power mode to drop to seventh. Mikkelsen was quicker than Neuville on that stage and got his teammate's lead down to just one second. Neuville responded, getting substantially more speed out of the conditions than those immediately...
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