M-Sport Ford's Sébastien Ogier headed the timing screens during Thursday morning's shakedown at Kennards Hire Rally Australia in New South Wales.
This weekend's finale is a title showdown event with Ogier leading the standings by a mere three points over Hyundai's Thierry Neuville, whilst Toyota's Ott Tänak is a further 20 points adrift with an outside shot at being crowned the 2018 champion.
If Thursday's showdown is anything to go by, it'll be a hard battle to the finish with Ogier pipping Andreas Mikkelsen and Tänak by just 0.2 seconds as Neuville came in fourth, 0.3s behind his title rival.
Tänak and Toyota team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala set the pace in the opening run though the forested gravel road test in their Yaris World Rally Cars. Tänak and the third Yaris of Esapekka Lappi then lowered the benchmark during their second runs.
Times continued to tumble as competitors cleaned the roads of loose gravel. Ogier powered his Ford Fiesta to the stop of the standings in his third pass, slicing more tenths from his personal best in his fourth and final run.
Mikkelsen was one of the busiest of the frontrunners, completing six runs in his Hyundai i20. The Norwegian ended level with Tänak, both posting their best times in their fourth runs.
"It’s a nice shakedown, very representative of the stages,” commented Tänak. "We also have a couple of stages on the same pieces of road, so it was nice to get a feeling on how everything is working.
"The main thing will be the weather. It looks like it’s changing all the time and difficult to predict what’s coming," added the Estonian, aware of forecasts which suggest rain tonight and into tomorrow’s opening leg, which could have a significant effect on who benefits from their start position.
Neuville is using an upgraded engine for the first time this weekend, fitted with a 2019-specification cylinder head.
Craig Breen’s Citroën C3 and Hayden Paddon’s i20 completed the top six.
| 1. | Sébastien Ogier | Ford Fiesta | 2:53.8s |
| 2. | Andreas Mikkelsen | Hyundai i20 | + 0.2s |
| 2= | Ott Tänak | Toyota Yaris | + 0.2s |
| 4. | Thierry Neuville | Hyundai i20 | + 0.3s |
| 5. | Craig Breen | Citroën C3 | + 0.8s |
| 6. | Hayden Paddon | Hyundai i20 | + 0.9s |
| 7. | Jari-Matti Latvala | Toyota Yaris | + 1.1s |
| 8. | Esapekka Lappi | Toyota Yaris | + 1.2s |
| 9. | Teemu Suninen | Ford Fiesta | + 1.3s |
| 10. | Elfyn Evans | Ford Fiesta | + 1.4s |
